The Stickit Minister's Wooing and Other Galloway Stories

Gibby inquired if the doctor had been there recently.

"Oh, yes," said Bridget; "as ye may see if ye'll be troubled lookin' in the corner. He tore down all thim curtains off the box-bed. It'll break the ould woman's heart, that it will, if ever the craitur gets over this."

At the door Gibby met Father Phil Kavannah, a tall young man with honest peasant's eyes and a humorous mouth.

"You and I, surr, will have to see this through between us," said Father Phil, grasping his hand.

"It is a bad business," responded Gilbert; "I fear it will run through the mills."

"Worse than ye think," said the priest very gravely, "ten times worse – three-fourths of the workers have no relatives here, and there will be no one to nurse them. They've talked lashin's about the new village hospital, and raised all Tipperary about where it is to stand and what it is to cost, but that's all that's done about it yet."

Gilbert whistled a bar of "Annie Laurie," which he kept for emergencies.

"Well," he said slowly, "it will be like serving a Sunday-school picnic with half a loaf and one jar of marmalade – but we'll just need to see how far we can make ourselves go round!"

"Right!" said Father Phil with a wave of his hand as he stood with his fingers on the latch of Betty McGrath's door.

Gilbert found the doctor in the great "saal" at the mills. He had his coat off and was scraping at bared arms for dear life. At each door stood a pair of stalwart sentinels, and several hundred mill workers were grouped about talking in low-voiced clusters. Only here and there one more diligent than the rest, or with quieter nerves, deftly passed sheets of white paper from hand to hand as if performing a conjuring trick.

The doctor spied Gilbert as he entered. They were excellent friends. "Man," he cried across the great room, looking down again instantly to his work, "run up to the surgery for another tube of vaccine like this. It is in B cabinet, shelf 6. And as you come back, wire for half-a-dozen more. You know where I get them!"

And Gilbert sped upon his first errand. After that he deserted his own lodgings, and he and Dr. Durie took hasty and informal meals when they could snatch a moment from work. Sundry cold edibles stood permanently on the doctor's oaken sideboard, and of these Gilbert and his host partook without sitting down. Then on a couch, or more often on a few rugs thrown on the floor, one or the other would snatch a hurried sleep.

There were twenty-six cases on Saturday – fifty-eight by the middle of the following week. Within the same period nine had terminated fatally, and there were others who could not possibly recover. Nurses came in from the great city hospitals, as they could be spared, but the demand far exceeded the supply, and Gilbert was indefatigable. Yet his laugh was cheery as ever, and even the delirious would start into some faint consciousness of pleasure at the sound of his voice.

But one day the young minister awoke with a racking head, a burning body, a dry throat, and the chill of ice in his bones.

"This is nothing – I will work it off," said Gibby; and, getting up, he dressed with haste and went out without touching food. The thought of eating was abhorrent to him. Nevertheless, he did his work all the forenoon, and went here and there with medicine and necessaries. He relieved a nurse who had been two nights on duty, while she slept for six hours. Then after that he set off home to catch Dr. Durie before he could be out again. For he had heard his host come in and throw himself down on the couch while he was dressing.

As he passed the front of Rescobie Manse, he looked up to wave a hand to Jemima, as he never forgot to do. Her father was still "indisposed," and Miss Girnigo was understood to be taking care of him. Yes, there she was among her flowers, and Gibby, hardly knowing what he did – being light-headed and racked with pain – openly kissed his hand to her within sight of half-a-score of Rescobie windows.

Then, his feet somehow tangling themselves and his knees failing him, he fell all his length in the hot dust of the highway.

* * * * *

When Gilbert Denholm came to himself he found a white-capped nurse sitting by the window of a room he had never before seen. There was a smell of disinfectants all about, which somehow seemed to have followed him through all the boundless interstellar spaces across which he had been wandering.

"Where am I?" said Gibby, as the nurse came toward the bed. "I have not seen Betty McGrath this morning, and I promised Father Phil that I would."

"You must not ask questions," said the nurse quietly. "Dr. Durie will soon be here."

And after that with a curious readiness Gibby slipped back into a drowsy dream of gathering flowers with Jemima Girnigo; but somehow it was another Jemima – so young she seemed, so fair. Crisp curls glanced beneath her hat brim. Young blood mantled in changeful blushes on her cheeks. Her pale eyes, which had always been a little watery, were now blue and bright as a mountain tarn on a day without clouds. He had never seen so fair and joyous a thing.

"Jemima," he said, or seemed to himself to say, "what is the matter with you? You are different somehow."

"It is all because you love me, Gilbert," she answered, and smiled up at him. "Ever since you told me that, I have grown younger every hour; and, do you know, I have found the Grass of Parnassus at last. It grows by the Gate into the Upper Garden?"

* * * * *

"Hello, Denholm, clothed and in your right mind, eh? That's right!"

It was the cheerful voice of his friend, Dr. Durie, as he stood by Gibby's bedside.

"What has been the matter with me, Durie?" said Gilbert, though in his heart he knew.

"You have had bad small-pox, my boy; and have had a hot chance to find out whether you have been speaking the truth in your sermons."

Gibby could hardly bring his lips to frame the next question. He was far from vain, but to a young man the thought was a terrible one.

"Shall I be much disfigured?"

"Oh, a dimple or two – nothing to mar you on your marriage day. You have been well looked after."

"You have saved my life, doctor."

And Gibby strove to reach a feeble hand outward, which, however, the doctor did not seem to see.

"Not I – you owe that to some one else."

"The nurse who went out just now?" queried Gibby.

"No, she has just been here a few clays, after all danger had passed."

Gilbert strove to rise on his elbow and the red flushed his poor face.

The doctor restrained him with a strong and gentle hand.

"Lie back," he said, "or I will go away and tell you nothing."

He sat down by the bedside, and with a soft sponge touched the convalescent's brow. As he did so he spoke in a low and meditative tone as though he had been talking to himself.

"There was once a foolish young man who thought that he could take twenty shillings out of a purse into which he had only put half a sovereign. He fell down one day on the street. A woman carried him in and nursed him through a fortnight's delirium. A woman caught him as he ran, with only a blanket about him, to drown himself in the Black Pool of Rescobie Water. Night and day she watched him, sleepless, without weariness, without murmuring – "

"And this woman – who saved my life – what was – her name?"

Gibby's voice was very hoarse.

"Jemima Girnigo!" said the doctor, sinking his voice also to a whisper.

"Where is she – I want to see her – I want to thank her?" cried Gibby. He was actually upon his elbow now.

Dr. Dune forced him gently back upon the pillows.

"Yes, yes," he said soothingly, "so you shall – if all tales be true; but for that you must wait."

"Why – why?" cried impatient Gibby. "Why cannot I see her now? She has done more for me than ever I deserved – "

"That is the way of women," said the doctor, "but you cannot thank her now. She is dead."