Ladies coming with their husbands to visit the manse, conceived a prejudice against Sarah on the general ground of dislike to all housekeepers as a class of servants outside of any mistress's control, and therefore apt to give themselves airs, and especially because this one had a subtle suggestion of independent personality that was all the more irritating because it could not be made plain to the dull male intelligence, which was sadly deceived.
"What a lucky man Carmichael is on his first venture!" Even Dr. Dowbiggin, of St. Columba's, Muirtown, grew enthusiastic to his wife in the privacy of their bedchamber on a sacramental visit, and every one knows that the Doctor was a responsible man, ministering to four bailies and making "overtures" to the Assembly, beginning with "Whereas" and ending with "Venerable House." "I am extremely pleased to see … everything so nice."
"You mean, James, that you have had a good dinner, far too ambitious for a young minister's table. Did you ever see an entrée on a Disruption table, or dessert with finger glasses? I call it sinful—for the minister of Drumtochty, at least; and I don't believe he was ever accustomed to such ways. If she attended to his clothes, it would set her better than cooking French dishes. Did you notice the coat he was wearing at the station?—just like a gamekeeper. But it is easy for a woman to satisfy a man; give him something nice to eat, and he 'll ask no more."
"So far as my recollection serves me, Maria"—the Doctor was ruffled, and fell into his public style—"I made no reference to food, cooked or uncooked, and perhaps I may be allowed to say that it is not a subject one thinks of … at such seasons. What gave me much satisfaction was to see one of our manses so presentable; as regards the housekeeper, so far as I had an opportunity of observing, she seemed a very capable woman indeed," and the Doctor gave one of his coughs, which were found most conclusive in debate.
"It's easy to be a man's servant," retorted Mrs. Dowbiggin, removing a vase of flowers from the dressing-table with contempt, "for they never look below the surface. Did you notice her hands, as white and smooth as a lady's? You may be sure there 's little scrubbing and brushing goes on in this manse."
"How do you know, Maria?"—the Doctor was weakening. "You have never been in the house before."
"We 'll soon see that, James, though I dare say it would never occur to a man to do such a thing. Did you ever look below the bed?"
"Never," replied the Doctor, promptly, who was not constructed to stoop, "and I am not going to begin after that … ah … this evening, with work before me to-morrow. But I would be glad to see you."
"I have done so every night of my life for fear of robbers, and the dust I 've seen in strange houses—it's there you can tell a good servant," and Mrs. Dowbiggin nodded with an air of great sagacity.
"Well," demanded the Doctor, anxiously watching the operation, "guilty or not guilty?"
"She knew what I would do. I hate those sharp women," and then the Doctor grew so eloquent over uncharitable judgments and unreasonable prejudices that his wife denounced Sarah bitterly as a "cunning woman who got on the blind side of gentlemen."
Her popularity with Carmichael's friends was beyond question, for though she was a reserved woman, with no voluntary conversation, they all sent messages to her, inquired for her well-being at Fast-days, and brought her gifts of handkerchiefs, gloves, and such like. When they met at Theologicals and Synods they used to talk of Sarah with unction—till married men were green with envy—being simple fellows and helpless in the hands of elderly females of the Meiklewham genus. For there are various arts by which a woman, in Sarah's place, wins a man's gratitude, and it may be admitted that one is skilful cooking. Sensible and book-reading men do not hunger for six courses, but they are critical about their toast and … nothing more, for that is the pulse. Then a man also hates to have any fixed hour for breakfast—never thinking of houses where they have prayers at 7.50 without a shudder—but a man refuses to be kept waiting five minutes for dinner. If a woman will find his belongings, which he has scattered over three rooms and the hall, he invests her with many virtues, and if she packs his portmanteau, he will associate her with St. Theresa. But if his hostess be inclined to discuss problems with him, he will receive her name with marked coldness; and if she follow up this trial with evil food, he will conceive a rooted dislike for her, and will flee her house. So simple is a man.
When Sarah proposed to Carmichael that she should prepare breakfast after he rung for his hot water, and when he never caught a hint of reproach on her face though he sat up till three and came down at eleven, he was lifted, hardly believing that such humanity could be found among women, who always seem to have a time table they are carrying out the livelong day.
"The millennium is near at hand," said MacQueen, when the morning arrangements of the Free Kirk manse of Drumtochty were made known to him—MacQueen, who used to arrive without so much as a nightshirt, having left a trail of luggage behind him at various junctions, and has written books so learned that no one dares to say that he has not read them. Then he placed an ounce of shag handy, and Carmichael stoked the fire, and they sat down, with Beaton, who could refer to the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas from beginning to end, and they discussed the Doctrine of Scripture in the Fathers, and the formation of the Canon, and the authorship of the Pentateuch till two in the study. Afterwards they went to MacQueen's room to hear him on the Talmud, and next adjourned to Beaton's room, who offered a series of twelve preliminary observations on the Theology of Rupert of Deutz, whereupon his host promptly put out his candle, leaving that man of supernatural memory to go to bed in the dark; and as Carmichael pulled up the blind in his own room, the day was breaking and a blackbird had begun to sing. Next afternoon Beaton had resumed his observations on Rupert, but now they were lying among the heather on the side of Glen Urtach, and Carmichael was asleep, while MacQueen was thinking that they would have a good appetite for dinner that evening.
Sarah had only one fault to find with her master, and that was his Bohemian dress; but since it pleased him to go one button less through studied carelessness, she let him have his way; and as for everything else, she kept her word to his aunt, and saw that he wanted for nothing, serving him with perpetual thoughtfulness and swift capacity.
Little passed between them except a good-natured word or two from him and her courteous answer, but she could read him as a book, and when he came home that day from Muirtown she saw he was changed. He was slightly flushed, and he could not sit still, wandering in and out his study till dinner-time. He allowed the soup to cool, and when she came in with sweets he had barely touched his cutlet.
"It is the sauce you like, sir," with some reproach in her voice.
"So it is, Sarah—and first rate." Then he added suddenly, "Can you put a button on this coat to-night, and give it a good brush?"
In the evening Sarah went down to post a letter, and heard the talk, how Miss Carnegie had come home with the General, and was worthy of her house; how the minister also had driven up with her from Muirtown; and on her return she did her best by the coat, handling it very kindly, and singing softly to herself "Robin Adair."
Next morning he came down in his blacks—the worst-made suit ever seen on a man, ordered to help a village tailor at his home—and announced his intention of starting after lunch for Saunderson's manse, beyond Tochty woods, where he would stay all night.
"He will call on the way down, and, if he can, coming back," Sarah said to herself, as she watched him go, "but it's a pity he should go in such a coat; it might have been put together with a pitchfork. It only makes the difference greater, and 't is wider than he knows already. And yet a woman can marry beneath her without loss; but for a man it is ruin."
She went up to his room and made it neat, which was ever in disorder on his leaving, and then she went to a western window and looked into the far distance.
very Sabbath at eleven o'clock, or as soon thereafter as the people were seated—consideration was always shown to distant figures coming down from the high glen—Carmichael held what might be called High Mass in the Free Kirk. Nothing was used in praise but the Psalms of David, with an occasional Paraphrase sanctioned by usage and sound teaching. The prayers were expected to be elaborate in expression and careful in statement, and it was then that they prayed for the Queen and Houses of Parliament. And the sermon was the event to which the efforts of the minister and the thoughts of the people had been moving for the whole week. No person was absent except through sore sickness or urgent farm duty; nor did rain or snow reduce the congregation by more than ten people, very old or very young. Carmichael is now minister of a West End kirk, and, it is freely rumoured in Drumtochty, has preached before Lords of Session; but he has never been more nervous than facing that handful of quiet, impenetrable, critical faces in his first kirk. When the service was over, the people broke into little bands that disappeared along the west road, and over the moor, and across the Tochty. Carmichael knew each one was reviewing his sermon head by head, and, pacing his garden, he remembered the missing points with dismay.
It was the custom of the Free Kirk minister to go far afield of a summer evening, and to hold informal services in distant parts of the parish. This was the joy of the day to him, who was really very young and hated all conventionalities even unto affectation. He was never weary of complaining that he had to wear a gown, which was continually falling back and being hitched over with impatient motions, and the bands, which he could never tie, and were, he explained to a horrified beadle in Muirtown, an invention of Satan to disturb the preacher's soul before his work. Once, indeed, he dared to appear without his trappings, on the plea of heat, but the visible dismay and sorrow of the people was so great—some failing to find the Psalm till the first verse had been sung—that he perspired freely and forgot the middle head of his discourse.
"It's a mercy," remarked Mrs. Macfadyen to Burnbrae afterward, "that he didna play that trick when there wes a bairn tae be baptised. It wudna hae been lichtsome for its fouk; a'body wants a properly ordained minister. Ye 'll gie him a hint, Burnbrae, for he's young and fordersome (rash), but gude stuff for a' his pliskies (frolics)."
No one would have liked to see the sacred robes in the places of evening worship, and Carmichael threw all forms to the winds—only drawing the line, with great regret and some searchings of heart, at his tweed jacket. His address for these summer evening gatherings he studied as he went through the fragrant pine woods or over the moor by springy paths that twisted through the heather, or along near cuts that meant leaping little burns and climbing dykes whose top stones were apt to follow your heels with embarrassing attachment. Here and there the minister would stop as a trout leapt in a pool, or a flock of wild duck crossed the sky to Loch Sheuchie, or the cattle thrust inquisitive noses through some hedge, as a student snatches a mouthful from some book in passing. For these walks were his best study; when thinking of his people in their goodness and simplicity, and touched by nature at her gentlest, he was freed from many vain ideas of the schools and from artificial learning, and heard the Galilean speak as He used to do among the fields of corn. He came on people going in the same direction, but they only saluted, refraining even from the weather, since the minister's thoughts must not be disturbed, and they were amazed to notice, that he stooped to pluck a violet in the wood. His host would come a little way to meet him and explain the arrangements that had been made for a kirk. Sometimes the meeting-place was the granary of the farm, with floor swept clean and the wooden shutters opened for light, where the minister preached against a mixed background of fanners, corn measures, piles of sacks, and spare implements of the finer sort; and the congregation, who had come up a ladder cautiously like hens going to roost—being severally warned about the second highest step—sat on bags stuffed with straw, boards resting on upturned pails, while a few older folk were accommodated with chairs, and some youngsters disdained not the floor. It was pleasanter in the barn, a cool, lofty, not unimpressive place of worship, with its mass of golden straw and its open door through which various kindly sounds of farm life came in and strange visitors entered. The collies, most sociable of animals, would saunter in and make friendly advances to Carmichael reading a chapter; then, catching their master's eye and detecting no encouragement, would suddenly realise that they were at kirk, and compose themselves to sleep—"juist like ony Christian," as Hillocks once remarked with envy, his own plank allowing no liberties—and never taking any part except in a hymn like
"See the mighty host advancing,
Satan leading on,"
which they regarded as recreation rather than worship.
It was also recalled for years that a pet lamb came into Donald Menzies's barn and wandered about for a while, and Carmichael told that pretty legend of St. Francis, how he saw a white lamb among the kids, and burst into tears at the sight, because it reminded him of Jesus among the sinners. Indeed, these services were very extemporaneous, with hymns instead of psalms, and sermons without divisions. Carmichael also allowed himself illustrations from the life around, and even an anecdote at a time, which was all the more keenly relished that it would have been considered a confession of weakness in a regular sermon. He has been heard to say that he came nearer the heart of things once or twice in the barns than he has ever done since, not even excepting that famous course of sermons every one talked about last year, the "Analysis of Doubt," which almost converted two professors to Christianity, and were heard by the editor of the Caledonian in the disguise of a street preacher. It was also pleasantly remembered for long in the parish that Dr. Davidson appeared one evening in Donald Menzies's barn and joined affably in the "Sweet By-and-Bye." Afterward, being supplied with a large arm-chair, he heard the address with much attention—nodding approval four times, if not five—and pronouncing the benediction with such impressiveness that Donald felt some hesitation in thrashing his last stack in the place next day. The Doctor followed up this visit with an exhortation from the pulpit on the following Sabbath, in which he carefully distinguished such services by an ordained minister, although held in a barn, from unlicensed Plymouthistic gatherings held in corn rooms—this at Milton's amateur efforts—and advised his people in each district to avail themselves of "my friend Mr. Carmichael's excellent ministrations," which Papal Bull, being distributed to the furthest corner of the parish before nightfall, greatly lifted the Free Kirk and sweetened the blood of the Glen for years. It seemed to me, watching things in Drumtochty during those days with an impartial mind, that the Doctor, with his care for the poor, his sympathy for the oppressed, his interest in everything human, his shrewd practical wisdom, and his wide toleration, was the very ideal of the parish clergyman. He showed me much courtesy while I lived in the Cottage, although I did not belong to his communion, and as my imagination reconstructs the old parish of a winter night by the fire, I miss him as he used to be on the road, in the people's homes, in his pulpit, among his books—ever an honourable and kind-hearted gentleman.
One evening a woman came into Donald Menzies's barn just before the hour of service, elderly, most careful in her widow's dress, somewhat austere in expression, but very courteous in her manner. No one recognised her at the time, but she was suspected to be the forerunner of the Carnegie household, and Donald offered her a front seat. She thanked him for his good-will, but asked for a lower place, greatly delighting him by a reference to the parable wherein the Master rebuked the ambitious Pharisees who scrambled for chief seats. Their accent showed of what blood they both were, and that their Gaelic had still been mercifully left them, but they did not use it because of their perfect breeding, which taught them not to speak a foreign tongue in this place. So the people saw Donald offer her a hymn-book and heard her reply:
"It iss not a book that I will be using, and it will be a peety to take it from other people;" nor would she stand at the singing, but sat very rigid and with closed lips. When Carmichael, who had a pleasant tenor voice and a good ear, sang a solo, then much tasted in such meetings, she arose and left the place, and the minister thought he had never seen anything more uncompromising than her pale set face.
It was evident that she was Free Kirk and of the Highland persuasion, which was once over-praised and then has been over-blamed, but is never understood by the Lowland mind; and as Carmichael found that she had come to live in a cottage at the entrance to the Lodge, he looked in on his way home. She was sitting at a table reading the Bible, and her face was more hostile than in the meeting; but she received him with much politeness, dusting a chair and praying him to be seated. "You have just come to the district to reside, I think? I hope you will like our Glen."
"It wass here that I lived long ago, but I hef been married and away with my mistress many years, and there are not many that will know me."
"But you are not of Drumtochty blood?" inquired the minister.
"There iss not one drop of Sassenach blood in my veins"—this with a sudden flash. "I am a Macpherson and my husband wass a Macpherson; but we hef served the house of Carnegie for four generations."
"You are a widow, I think, Mrs. Macpherson?" and Carmichael's voice took a tone of sympathy. "Have you any children?"
"My husband iss dead, and I had one son, and he iss dead also; that iss all, and I am alone;" but in her voice there was no weakening.
"Will you let me say how sorry I am?" pleaded Carmichael, "this is a great grief, but I hope you have consolations."
"Yes, I will be having many consolations; they both died like brave men with their face to the enemy. There were six that did not feel fery well before Ian fell; he could do good work with the sword as well as the bayonet, and he wass not bad with the dirk at a time."
Neither this woman nor her house were like anything in Drumtochty, for in it there was a buffet for dishes, and a carved chest and a large chair, all of old black oak; and above the mantelpiece two broadswords were crossed, with a circle of war medals beneath on a velvet ground, flanked by two old pistols.
"I suppose those arms have belonged to your people, Mrs. Macpherson; may I look at them?"
"They are not anything to be admiring, and it wass not manners that I should hef been boasting of my men. It iss a pleasant evening and good for walking."
"You were at the meeting, I think?" and Carmichael tried to get nearer this iron woman. "We were sorry you had to go out before the end. Did you not feel at home?"
"I will not be accustomed to the theatre, and I am not liking it instead of the church."
"But surely there was nothing worse in my singing alone than praying alone?" and Carmichael began to argue like a Scotsman, who always fancies that people can be convinced by logic, and forgets that many people, Celts in especial, are ruled by their heart and not by their head; "do you see anything wrong in one praising God aloud in a hymn, as the Virgin Mary did?"
"It iss the Virgin Mary you will be coming to next, no doubt, and the Cross and the Mass, like the Catholics, although I am not saying anything against them, for my mother's cousins four times removed were Catholics, and fery good people. But I am a Presbyterian, and do not want the Virgin Mary."
Carmichael learned at that moment what it was to argue with a woman, and he was to make more discoveries in that department before he came to terms with the sex, and would have left in despair had it not been for an inspiration of his good angel.
"Well, Mrs. Macpherson, I did n't come to argue about hymns, but to bid you welcome to the Glen and to ask for a glass of water, for preaching is thirsty work."
"It iss black shame I am crying on myself for sitting here and offering you neither meat nor drink," and she was stung with regret in an instant. "It iss a little spirits you will be tasting, and this iss Talisker which I will be keeping for a friend, for whisky iss not for women."
She was full of attention, but when Carmichael took milk instead of whisky, her suspicions revived, and she eyed him again.
"You are not one of those new people I am hearing of in the Lowlands that are wiser than the fery Apostles?"
"What people?" and Carmichael trembled for his new position.
"'Total abstainers' they will call themselves," and the contempt in her accent was wonderful.
"No, I am not," Carmichael hastened to reassure his hostess; "but there are worse people than abstainers in the world, and it would be better if we had a few more. I will stick to the milk, if you please."
"You will take what you please," and she was again mollified; "but the great ministers always had their tasting after preaching; and I hef heard one of them say that it wass a sin to despise the Lord's mercies. You will be taking another glass of milk and resting a little."
"This hospitality reminds me of my mother, Mrs. Macpherson." Carmichael was still inspired, and was, indeed, now in full sail. "She was a Highland woman, and had the Gaelic. She sometimes called me Ian instead of John."
"When you wass preaching about the shepherd finding the sheep, I wass wondering how you had the way to the heart, and I might have been thinking, oh yes, I might hef known"—all the time Janet was ever bringing something new out of the cupboard, though Carmichael only sipped the milk. "And what wass your mother's name?"
"Farquharson; her people came from Braemar; but they are all dead now, and I am the last of the race."
"A good clan," cried Janet, in great spirits, "and a loyal; they were out with the Macphersons in the '45. Will you happen to know whether your ancestor suffered?"
"That he did, for he shot an English officer dead on his doorstep, and had to flee the country; it was not a pretty deed."
"Had the officer broken bread with him?" inquired Janet, anxiously.
"No, he had come to quarter himself and his men on him, and said something rude about the Prince."
"Your ancestor gave him back his word like a gentleman; but he would maybe hef to stay away for a while. Wass he of the chief's blood?"
"Oh no, just a little laird, and he lost his bit of land, and we never saw the place again."
"He would be a Dunniewassal, and proud it iss I am to see you in my house; and the Gaelic, will you hef some words?"
"Just the sound of it, Mrs. Macpherson," and he repeated his three sentences, all that he had learned of his mother, who had become a Scotswoman in her speech.
"Call me Janet, my dear; and it iss the good Gaelic your mother must have had, and it makes my heart glad to think my minister iss a Farquharson, by the mother's side."
"We sing nothing but Psalms at church, Mrs. … Janet, so you will be pleased, and we stand to pray and sit to sing."
"Tuts, tuts, I am not minding about a bit hime at a time from a friend, but it iss those Lowlanders meddling with everything I do not like, and I am hoping to hear you sing again, for it wass a fery pretty tune;" and the smith, passing along the road when Carmichael left that evening, heard Janet call him "my dear," and invoke a thousand blessings on his head.
When he called again in the end of the week to cement the alliance and secure her presence on Sabbath, Janet was polishing the swords, and was willing enough to give their history.
"This wass my great-grandfather's, and these two nicks in the blade were made on the dragoons at Prestonpans; and this wass my husband's sword, for he wass sergeant-major before he died, a fery brave man, good at the fighting and the praying too.
"Maybe I am wrong, and I do not know what you may be thinking, but things come into my mind when I am reading the Bible, and I will be considering that it wass maybe not so good that the Apostles were fishing people."
"What ails you at fishermen, Janet?"
"Nothing at all but one thing; they are clever at their nets and at religion, but I am not hearing that they can play with the sword or the dirk.
"It wass a fery good intention that Peter had that night, no doubt, and I will be liking him for it when he took his sword to the policeman, but it wass a mighty poor blow. If Ian or his father had got as near as that, it would not have been an ear that would have been missing."
"Perhaps his head," suggested Carmichael.
"He would not have been putting his nose into honest people's business again, at any rate," and Janet nodded her head as one who could see a downright blow that left no regrets; "it hass always made me ashamed to read about that ear.
"It wass not possible, and it iss maybe no good speaking about it now"—Janet felt she had a minister now she could open her mind to—"but it would hef been better if our Lord could hef had twelve Macphersons for His Apostles."
"You mean they would have been more brave and faithful?"
"There 'wass a price of six thousand pounds, or it might be four, put on Cluny's head after Culloden, and the English soldiers were all up and down the country, but I am not hearing that any clansman betrayed his chief.
"Thirty pieces of silver wass a fery small reward for such a dirty deed, and him one of the Chief's tail too; it wass a mistake to be trusting to fisher folk instead of Glen's men.
"There iss something I hef wished," concluded Janet, who seemed to have given her mind to the whole incident, "that Peter or some other man had drawn his skean-dhu and slippit it quietly into Judas. We would hef been respecting him fery much to-day, and it would hef been a good lesson—oh yes, a fery good lesson—to all traitors."
As they got more confidential, Janet began to speak of signs and dreams, and Carmichael asked her if she had the second sight.
"No; it iss not a lie I will be telling you, my dear, nor will I be boasting. I have not got it, nor had my mother, but she heard sounds, oh yes, and knew what wass coming to pass.
"'Janet,' she would say, 'I have heard the knock three times at the head of the bed; it will be your Uncle Alister, and I must go to see him before he dies.'"
"And was she—"
"Oh yes, she wass in time, and he wass expecting her; and once she saw the shroud begin to rise on her sister, but no more; it never covered the face before her eyes; but the knock, oh yes, many times."
"Have you known any one that could tell what was happening at a distance, and gave warning of danger?" for the latent Celt was awakening in Carmichael, with his love of mystery and his sense of the unseen.
"Listen, my dear"—Janet lowered her voice as one speaking of sacred things—"and I will tell you of Ina Macpherson, who lived to a hundred and two, and had the vision clear and sure.
"In the great war with Russia I wass staying in the clachan of my people, and then seven lads of our blood were with the Black Watch, and every Sabbath the minister would pray for them and the rest of the lads from Badenoch that were away at the fighting.
"One day Ina came into my sister's house, and she said, 'It iss danger that I am seeing,' and my heart stood still in my bosom for fear that it wass my own man Hamish.
"'No,' and she looked at me, 'not yet, and not to-day,' but more she would not say about him. 'Is it my son Ronald?' my sister cried, and Ina only looked before her. 'It's a sore travail, and round a few black tartans I see many men in grey, pressing them hard; ochone, ochone.'
"'It 's time to pray,' I said, and there wass a man in the clachan that wass mighty in prayer, and we gathered into his kitchen, four and twenty women and four men, and every one had a kinsman in the field.
"It iss this minute that I hear Dugald crying to the Almighty, 'Remember our lads, and be their help in the day of battle, and give them the necks of their enemies,' and he might be wrestling for half an hour, when Ina rose from her knees and said, 'The prayer is answered, for the tartans have the field, and I see blood on Ronald, but it is not his own.'"
"And did you ever hear—"
"Wait, my dear, and I will tell you, for the letter came from my nephew, and this is what he wrote:
"'It wass three to one, and the gloom came on me, for I thought that I would never see Glenfeshie again, nor the water of the loch, nor the deer on the side of the hill. Then I wass suddenly strengthened with all might in the inner man, and it iss five Russians that I hef killed to my own hands.'
"And so it wass, and a letter came from his captain, who wass of Cluny's blood, and it will be read in church, and a fery proud woman wass my sister."
These were the stories that Janet told to her minister in the days before the Carnegies came home, as well as afterwards, and so she prepared him to be an easier prey to a soldier's daughter.
hey met under the arch of the gate, and Carmichael returned with the Carnegies, Kate making much of him and insisting that he should stay to luncheon.
"You are our first visitor, Mr. Carmichael, and the General says that we need not expect more than six, so we mean to be very kind to them. Do you live far from here?"
"Quite near—just two miles west. I happened to be passing; in fact, I 'm going down to the next parish, and I … I thought that I would like to call and … and bid you welcome;" for Carmichael had not yet learned the art of conversation, which stands mainly in touching details lightly and avoiding the letter I.
"It is very cruel of you to be so honest and dispel our flattering illusions"—Kate marvelled at his mendacity—"we supposed you had come 'anes errand'—I'm picking up Scotch—to call on your new neighbours. Does the high road pass the Lodge?"
"Oh no; the road is eight miles further; but the Drumtochty people take the near way through the woods; it's also much prettier. I hope you will not forbid us, General? two people a week is all the traffic."
"Forbid them—not I," said Carnegie, laughing. "A man is not born and bred in this parish without learning some sense. It would be a right of way case, and Drumtochty would follow me from court to court, and would never rest till they had gained or we were all ruined.
"Has it ever struck you, Mr. Carmichael, that one of the differences between a Highlander and a Scot is that each has got a pet enjoyment? With the one it's a feud, and with the other it's a lawsuit. A Scot dearly loves a 'ganging plea.'
"No, no; Tochty woods will be open so long as Kate and I have anything to say in the matter. The Glen and our people have not had the same politics, but we 've lived at peace, as neighbours ought to do, with never a lawsuit even to give a fillip to life."
"So you see, Mr. Carmichael," said Kate, "you may come and go at all times through our territory; but it would be bare courtesy to call at the Lodge for afternoon tea."
"Or tiffin," suggested the General; "and we can always offer curry, as you see. My daughter has a capital recipe she wiled out of an old Hindoo rascal that cooked for our mess. You really need not take it on that account," as Carmichael was doing his best in much misery; "it is only meant to keep old Indians in fair humour—not to be a test of good manners. By the way, Janet has been sounding your praises, how have you won her heart?"
"Oh, very easily—by having some drops of Highland blood in my veins; and so I am forgiven all my faults, and am credited with all sorts of excellences."
"Then the Highlanders are as clannish as ever," cried the General. "Scotland has changed so much in the last half century that the Highlanders might have become quite unsentimental and matter-of-fact.
"Lowland civilisation only crossed the Highland line after '45, and it will take more than a hundred and thirty years to recast a Celt. Scottish education and theology are only a veneer on him, and below he has all his old instincts.
"So far as I can make out, a Celt will rather fish than plough, and be a gamekeeper than a workman; but if he be free to follow his own way, a genuine Highlander would rather be a soldier than anything else under the sun."
"What better could a man be?" and Kate's eyes sparkled; "they must envy the old times when their fathers raided the Lowlands and came home with the booty. It's a pity everybody is so respectable now, don't you think?"
"Certainly the police are very meddlesome," and Carmichael now devoted himself to Kate, without pretence of including the General; "but the spirit is not dead. A Celt is the child of generations of cattle-stealers, and the raiding spirit is still in the blood. May I offer an anecdote?"
"Six, if you have got so many, and they are all about Highlanders," and Kate leant forward and nursed her knee, for they had gone into the library.
"Last week I was passing the cattle market in Edinburgh, and a big Highland drover stopped me, begging for a little money.
"'It iss from Lochaber I hef come with some beasties, and to-morrow I will be walking back all the way, and it iss this night I hef no bed. I wass considering that the gardens would be a good place for a night, but they are telling me that the police will be disturbing me.'
"He looked so simple and honest that I gave him half-a-crown and said that I was half a Highlander. I have three Gaelic sentences, and I reeled them off with my best accent.
"'Got forgive me,' he said, 'for thinking you to be a Sassenach body, and taking your money from you. You are a fery well-made man, and here iss your silver piece, and may you always hef one in your pocket.'"
"'But what about your bed?'
"'Tuts, tuts, that will be all right, for I hef maybe got some six or five notes of my own that were profit on the beasties; but it iss a pity not to be taking anything that iss handy when a body happens to be in the south.'"
"Capital." Kate laughed merrily, and her too rare laugh I used to think the gayest I ever heard. "It was the only opportunity left him of following his fathers. What a fine business it must have been, starting from Braemar one afternoon, a dozen men well armed, and getting down to Strathmore in the morning; then lying hid in some wood all day, and collecting a herd of fat cattle in the evening, and driving them up Glen Shee, not knowing when there might be a fight."
"Hard lines on the Scottish farmers, Kit, who might be very decent fellows, to lose their cattle or get a cut from a broadsword."
"Oh, they had plenty left; and seriously, dad, without joking, you know, what better could a Presbyterian Lowlander do than raise good beef for Highland gentlemen? Mr. Carmichael, I beg pardon; you seem so good a Celt, that I forgot you were not of our faith."
"We are not Catholics," the General explained, gravely, "although many of our blood have been, and my daughter was educated in a convent. We belong to the Episcopal Church of Scotland, and will go into Muirtown at a time, but mostly we shall attend the kirk of my old friend Dr. Davidson. Every man is entitled to his faith, and Miss Carnegie rather…"
"Forgot herself." Kate came to her father's relief. "She often does; but one thing Miss Carnegie remembers, and that is that General Carnegie likes his cheroot after tiffin. Do you smoke, Mr. Carmichael? Oh, I am allowed to stay, if you don't object, and have forgiven my rudeness."
"You make too much of a word, Miss Carnegie." Carmichael was not a man to take offence till his pride was roused. "Very likely my drover was a true blue Presbyterian, and his minister as genuine a cateran as himself.
"Years ago I made the acquaintance of an old Highland minister called MacTavish, and he sometimes stays with me on his way north in the spring. For thirty years he has started at the first sign of snow, and spent winter spoiling the good people of the south. Some years he has gone home with three hundred pounds."
"But how does he get the money?" inquired the General, "and what does he use it for?"
"He told me the history of his campaigns when he passed in March, and it might interest you; it's our modern raid, and although it's not so picturesque as a foray of the Macphersons, yet it has points, and shows the old spirit lives.
"'She wass a goot woman, Janet Cameron, oh yes, Mr. John, a fery exercised woman, and when she wass dying she will be saying peautiful things, and one day she will be speaking of a little field she had beside the church.
"'"What do you think I should be doing with that piece of ground," she will be saying, "for the end iss not far off, and it iss not earth I can be taking with me, oh no, nor cows."
"'"No, Janet," I said, "but it iss a nice field, and lies to the sun. It might be doing good after you are gone, if it wass not wasted on your mother's cousins twice removed in Inverness, who will be drinking every drop of it, and maybe going to the Moderate Kirk."
"'It wass not for two months or maybe six weeks she died, and I will be visiting her every second day. Her experiences were fery good, and I hef told them at sacraments in the north. The people in the south are free with their money, but it iss not the best of my stories that I can give them; they are too rich for their stomachs.
"'Janet will often be saying to me, "Mister Dugald, it iss a thankful woman that I ought to be, for though I lost my man in the big storm and two sons in the war, I hef had mercies, oh yes. There wass the Almighty and my cow, and between them I hef not wanted, oh no: they just did."
"'"Janet, you will be forgetting your field that iss lying next the manse, and the people will be thinking that it iss a glebe; but I am telling them that it iss Janet Cameron's, who iss a fery experienced woman, and hass nefer seen the inside of a Moderate Kirk since the Disruption."
"'Maybe you will be astonished, Mister John, but when Janet's will will be read that piece of ground wass left to the Free Kirk, which wass fery kind and mindful of Janet, and I made a sermon about her from the text of the "elect lady."
"'It wass a good field, but it needed a dyke and some drains, and it wass not our people that had the money. So I made another sermon on the text, "The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it," and went down to the south. It wass not a dyke and some drains, but enough to build a byre and a stable I came back with. That wass in '55, and before '60 there will be a new manse with twelve rooms that iss good for letting to the English people. But it wass ten years the church needed, and a year for the porch to keep it warm, for I am not liking stoves, and will not hef one in Crianshalloch.
"'It iss wonderful how much money the bodies hef in Glasgow, and it iss good for them to be hearing sound doctrine at a time. There will be no Arminianism when I am preaching, and no joking; but maybe there will be some parables, oh yes, about the sheep coming in at the manse door for want of a fence, and the snow lying in the pulpit.'
"There is a cateran for you, and, mind you, a good fellow too. It's not greed sends him out, but sheer love of spoil. Would you like to see MacTavish next time he passes up with the cattle?" for Carmichael was emboldened by the reception of his sketch.
"Nothing we should like better, for the General and I want to know all about Scotland; but don't you think that those ministers have injured the Highlanders? Janet, you know, has such gloomy ideas about religion."
"There is no doubt, Miss Carnegie, that a load of Saxon theology has been landed on the Celt, and it has disfigured his religion. Sometimes I have felt that the Catholic of the west is a truer type of northern faith than the Presbyterian of Ross-shire."
"I am so glad to hear you say that," said Miss Carnegie, "for we had one or two west Catholics in the old regiment, and their superstitions were lovely. You remember, dad, the MacIvers."
"That was all well enough, Kit, but none of them could get the length of corporal; they were fearfully ignorant, and were reported at intervals for not keeping their accoutrements clean."
"That only showed how religious they were, did n't it, Mr. Carmichael? Hadn't the early Christians a rooted objection to the bath? I remember our Padre saying that in a lecture."
"There are a good many modern Christians of the same mind, Miss Carnegie, and I don't think our poor Highlanders are worse than Lowlanders; but Catholic or Protestant, they are all subject to the gloom. I cannot give the Gaelic word.
"What is that? Oh, a southerner would call it depression, and assign it to the liver, for he traces all trouble to that source. But there is no word for this mood in English, because it is not an English experience. My mother fell under it at times, and I saw the effect."
"Tell us, please, if all this description does not weary you?" and Kate shone on Carmichael, who would have talked on the Council of Nice or the rotation of crops to prolong his privileges.
"It comes on quite suddenly, and is quite a spiritual matter—a cloud which descends and envelops the soul. While it lasts a Highlander will not laugh nor sing; he will hardly speak, and he loses all hope about everything. One of our men has the gloom at a time, and then he believes that he is … damned. I am speaking theologically."
"The regiment must have been fond of theology, dad. Yes, we understand."
"Once he went out to the hill, and lay all night wrestling and agonising to be sure whether there was a God. You know he 's just a small farmer, and it seems to me splendid that such a man should give himself to the big problems of the universe. Do you know," and Carmichael turned to the General, who was smoking in great peace, "I believe that is the reason the Highlanders are such good fighting men. They fear God, and they don't fear any other person."
"I 'll vouch for one thing," said the veteran with emphasis; "our men put off the gloom, or whatever you call it, when they smelt powder; I never saw a panic in a Highland regiment in more than forty years' soldiering."
"What's the reason of the gloom? I believe that I have a touch of it myself at times—don't stare at me, dad, it's rude—just a thin mist, you know, but distinctly not indigestion. Is it a matter of race?"
"Of course, but that's no explanation." Carmichael had fallen into his debating society style. "I mean one has to go further back; all our habits are shaped by environment."
"One moment, please. I have always wanted to ask some clever person what environment meant. I asked Colonel MacLeod once, dad, and he said it was out of the new book on tactics, and he was thankful he had retired. Now Mr. Carmichael will make it plain," and Kate was very demure.
"It is rather stupid to use the word so much as people do now," and Carmichael glanced dubiously at Kate; "scientific men use it for circumstances."
"Is that all? then do pray say environment. Such a word introduces one into good society, and gives one the feeling of being well dressed; now about a Highlander's environment, is it his kilt you are thinking of, or his house, or what?"
"His country"—and Carmichael's tone had a slight note of resentment, as of one ruffled by this frivolity—"with its sea lochs, and glens, and mists. Any one who has been bred and reared at the foot of one of our mountains will have a different nature and religion from one living in Kent or Italy. He has a sense of reverence, and surely that is a good thing."
"Nothing more needed nowadays," the General broke in with much spirit; "it seems to me that people nowadays respect nobody, neither the Queen nor Almighty God. As for that man Brimstone, he will never cease till he has ruined the Empire. You need n't look at me, Kate, for Mr.… Carmichael must know this as well as any other sensible man.
"Why, sir," and now the General was on his feet, "I was told on good authority at the club last week by a newspaper man—a monstrously clever man—that Mr. Brimstone, when he is going down to the House of Commons to disestablish the Church, or the army, or something, will call in at a shop and order two hundred silk hats to be sent to his house. What do you call that, sir?"
"I should call it a deliberate—"