The Little Minister

“As muckle as atween auld Peter Spens and his wife, wha was saxteen when he was saxty, and she was playing at dumps in the street when her man was waiting for her to make his porridge. Ay, sic a differ doesna suit wi’ common folk, but of course earls can please themsels. Rintoul’s so fond o’ the leddyship ’at is to be, that when she was at the school in Edinbury he wrote to her ilka day. Kaytherine Crummie telled me that, and she says aince you’re used to it, writing letters is as easy as skinning moles. I dinna ken what they can write sic a heap about, but I daur say he gies her his views on the Chartist agitation and the potato disease, and she’ll write back about the romantic sichts o’ Edinbury and the sermons o’ the grand preachers she hears. Sal, though, thae grand folk has no religion to speak o’, for they’re a’ English kirk. You’re no’ speiring what her leddyship said to me?”

“What did she say?”

“Weel, you see, there was a dancing ball on, and Kaytherine Crummie took me to a window whaur I could stand on a flower-pot and watch the critturs whirling round in the ball like teetotums. What’s mair, she 37 pointed out the leddyship that’s to be to me, and I just glowered at her, for thinks I, ‘Take your fill, Sanders, and whaur there’s lords and leddyships, dinna waste a minute on colonels and honourable misses and sic like dirt.’ Ay, but what wi’ my een blinking at the blaze o’ candles, I lost sicht o’ her till all at aince somebody says at my lug, ‘Well, my man, and who is the prettiest lady in the room?’ Mr. Dishart, it was her leddyship. She looked like a star.”

“And what did you do?”

“The first thing I did was to fall aff the flower-pot; but syne I came to, and says I, wi’ a polite smirk, ‘I’m thinking your leddyship,’ says I, ‘as you’re the bonniest yourself.’”

“I see you are a cute man, Sanders.”

“Ay, but that’s no’ a’. She lauched in a pleased way and tapped me wi’ her fan, and says she, ‘Why do you think me the prettiest?’ I dinna deny but what that staggered me, but I thocht a minute, and took a look at the other dancers again, and syne I says, michty sly like, ‘The other leddies,’ I says, ‘has sic sma’ feet.’”

Sanders stopped here and looked doubtingly at Gavin.

“I canna make up my mind,” he said, “whether she liked that, for she rapped my knuckles wi’ her fan fell sair, and aff she gaed. Ay, I consulted Tammas Haggart about it, and he says, ‘The flirty crittur,’ he says. What would you say, Mr. Dishart?”

Gavin managed to escape without giving an answer, for here their roads separated. He did not find the Wild Lindsays, however. Children of whim, of prodigious strength while in the open, but destined to wither quickly in the hot air of towns, they had gone from Caddam, leaving nothing of themselves behind but a black mark burned by their fires into the ground. Thus they branded the earth through many counties until some hour when the spirit of wandering again fell 38 on them, and they forsook their hearths with as little compunction as the bird leaves its nest.

Gavin had walked quickly, and he now stood silently in the wood, his hat in his hand. In the moonlight the grass seemed tipped with hoar frost. Most of the beeches were already bare, but the shoots, clustering round them, like children at their mother’s skirts, still retained their leaves red and brown. Among the pines these leaves were as incongruous as a wedding-dress at a funeral. Gavin was standing on grass, but there were patches of heather within sight, and broom, and the leaf of the blaeberry. Where the beeches had drawn up the earth with them as they grew, their roots ran this way and that, slippery to the feet and looking like disinterred bones. A squirrel appeared suddenly on the charred ground, looked doubtfully at Gavin to see if he was growing there, and then glided up a tree, where it sat eyeing him, and forgetting to conceal its shadow. Caddam was very still. At long intervals came from far away the whack of an axe on wood. Gavin was in a world by himself, and this might be some one breaking into it.

The mystery of woods by moonlight thrilled the little minister. His eyes rested on the shining roots, and he remembered what had been told him of the legend of Caddam, how once on a time it was a mighty wood, and a maiden most beautiful stood on its confines, panting and afraid, for a wicked man pursued her; how he drew near, and she ran a little way into the wood, and he followed her, and she still ran, and still he followed, until both were for ever lost, and the bones of her pursuer lie beneath a beech, but the lady may still be heard singing in the woods if the night be fine, for then she is a glad spirit, but weeping when there is wild wind, for then she is but a mortal seeking a way out of the wood.

The squirrel slid down the fir and was gone. The 39 axe’s blows ceased. Nothing that moved was in sight. The wind that has its nest in trees was circling around with many voices, that never rose above a whisper, and were often but the echo of a sigh.

Gavin was in the Caddam of past days, where the beautiful maiden wanders ever, waiting for him who is so pure that he may find her. He will wander over the tree-tops looking for her, with the moon for his lamp, and some night he will hear her singing. The little minister drew a deep breath, and his foot snapped a brittle twig. Then he remembered who and where he was, and stooped to pick up his staff. But he did not pick it up, for as his fingers were closing on it the lady began to sing.

For perhaps a minute Gavin stood stock still, like an intruder. Then he ran towards the singing, which seemed to come from Windyghoul, a straight road through Caddam that farmers use in summer, but leave in the back end of the year to leaves and pools. In Windyghoul there is either no wind or so much that it rushes down the sieve like an army, entering with a shriek of terror, and escaping with a derisive howl. The moon was crossing the avenue. But Gavin only saw the singer.

She was still fifty yards away, sometimes singing gleefully, and again letting her body sway lightly as she came dancing up Windyghoul. Soon she was within a few feet of the little minister, to whom singing, except when out of tune, was a suspicious thing, and dancing a device of the devil. His arm went out wrathfully, and his intention was to pronounce sentence on this woman.

But she passed, unconscious of his presence, and he had not moved nor spoken. Though really of the average height, she was a little thing to the eyes of Gavin, who always felt tall and stout except when he looked down. The grace of her swaying figure was a new 40 thing in the world to him. Only while she passed did he see her as a gleam of colour, a gypsy elf poorly clad, her bare feet flashing beneath a short green skirt, a twig of rowan berries stuck carelessly into her black hair. Her face was pale. She had an angel’s loveliness. Gavin shook.

Still she danced onwards, but she was very human, for when she came to muddy water she let her feet linger in it, and flung up her arms, dancing more wantonly than before. A diamond on her finger shot a thread of fire over the pool. Undoubtedly she was the devil.

Gavin leaped into the avenue, and she heard him and looked behind. He tried to cry “Woman!” sternly, but lost the word, for now she saw him, and laughed with her shoulders, and beckoned to him, so that he shook his fist at her. She tripped on, but often turning her head beckoned and mocked him, and he forgot his dignity and his pulpit and all other things, and ran after her. Up Windyghoul did he pursue her, and it was well that the precentor was not there to see. She reached the mouth of the avenue, and kissing her hand to Gavin, so that the ring gleamed again, was gone.

The minister’s one thought was to find her, but he searched in vain. She might be crossing the hill on her way to Thrums, or perhaps she was still laughing at him from behind a tree. After a longer time than he was aware of, Gavin realised that his boots were chirping and his trousers streaked with mud. Then he abandoned the search and hastened homewards in a rage.

From the hill to the manse the nearest way is down two fields, and the little minister descended them rapidly. Thrums, which is red in daylight, was grey and still as the cemetery. He had glimpses of several of its deserted streets. To the south the watch-light showed brightly, but no other was visible. So it seemed to Gavin, and then – suddenly – he lost the power to 41 move. He had heard the horn. Thrice it sounded, and thrice it struck him to the heart. He looked again and saw a shadow stealing along the Tenements, then another, then half-a-dozen. He remembered Mr. Carfrae’s words, “If you ever hear that horn, I implore you to hasten to the square,” and in another minute he had reached the Tenements.

Now again he saw the gypsy. She ran past him, half-a-score of men, armed with staves and pikes, at her heels. At first he thought they were chasing her, but they were following her as a leader. Her eyes sparkled as she waved them to the square with her arms.

“The soldiers, the soldiers!” was the universal cry.

“Who is that woman?” demanded Gavin, catching hold of a frightened old man.

“Curse the Egyptian limmer,” the man answered, “she’s egging my laddie on to fecht.”

“Bless her rather,” the son cried, “for warning us that the sojers is coming. Put your ear to the ground, Mr. Dishart, and you’ll hear the dirl o’ their feet.”

The young man rushed away to the square, flinging his father from him. Gavin followed. As he turned into the school wynd, the town drum began to beat, windows were thrown open, and sullen men ran out of closes where women were screaming and trying to hold them back. At the foot of the wynd Gavin passed Sanders Webster.

“Mr. Dishart,” the mole-catcher cried, “hae you seen that Egyptian? May I be struck dead if it’s no’ her little leddyship.”

But Gavin did not hear him.

Chapter Five.

A WARLIKE CHAPTER, CULMINATING IN THE FLOUTING OF THE MINISTER BY THE WOMAN

“Mr. Dishart!”

Jean had clutched at Gavin in Bank Street. Her hair was streaming, and her wrapper but half buttoned.

“Oh, Mr. Dishart, look at the mistress! I couldna keep her in the manse.”

Gavin saw his mother beside him, bare-headed, trembling.

“How could I sit still, Gavin, and the town full o’ the skirls of women and bairns? Oh, Gavin, what can I do for them? They will suffer most this night.”

As Gavin took her hand he knew that Margaret felt for the people more than he.

“But you must go home, mother,” he said, “and leave me to do my duty. I will take you myself if you will not go with Jean. Be careful of her, Jean.”

“Ay, will I,” Jean answered, then burst into tears. “Mr. Dishart,” she cried, “if they take my father they’d best take my mither too.”

The two women went back to the manse, where Jean relit the fire, having nothing else to do, and boiled the kettle, while Margaret wandered in anguish from room to room.

Men nearly naked ran past Gavin, seeking to escape from Thrums by the fields he had descended. When he shouted to them they only ran faster. A Tillyloss weaver whom he tried to stop struck him savagely and sped past to the square. In Bank Street, which was full 43 of people at one moment and empty the next, the minister stumbled over old Charles Yuill.

“Take me and welcome,” Yuill cried, mistaking Gavin for the enemy. He had only one arm through the sleeve of his jacket, and his feet were bare.

“I am Mr. Dishart. Are the soldiers already in the square, Yuill?”

“They’ll be there in a minute.”

The man was so weak that Gavin had to hold him.

“Be a man, Charles. You have nothing to fear. It is not such as you the soldiers have come for. If need be, I can swear that you had not the strength, even if you had the will, to join in the weavers’ riot.”

“For Godsake, Mr. Dishart,” Yuill cried, his hands chattering on Gavin’s coat, “dinna swear that. My laddie was in the thick o’ the riot; and if he’s ta’en there’s the poor’s-house gaping for Kitty and me, for I couldna weave half a web a week. If there’s a warrant agin onybody o’ the name of Yuill, swear it’s me; swear I’m a desperate character, swear I’m michty strong for all I look palsied; and if when they take me, my courage breaks down, swear the mair, swear I confessed my guilt to you on the Book.”

As Yuill spoke the quick rub-a-dub of a drum was heard.

“The soldiers!” Gavin let go his hold of the old man, who hastened away to give himself up.

“That’s no the sojers,” said a woman; “it’s the folk gathering in the square. This’ll be a watery Sabbath in Thrums.”