Chapter 24

LOVE IS LORD.

It could not be said with a steady face that the proceedings of the Free Kirk Presbytery of Muirtown increased the gaiety of nations, and there might be persons--far left to themselves, of course--who would describe its members as wearisome ecclesiastics. Carmichael himself, in a mood of gay irresponsibility, had once sketched a meeting of this reverend court, in which the names were skilfully adapted, after the ancient fashion, to represent character, and the incidents, if not _vero_, were certainly ben trovato, and had the article ready for transmission to _Ferrier's Journal_. 'A Sederunt' did not, however, add to the miseries of a most courteous editor, for Jenkins, having come up for an all-night conference, and having heard the article with unfeigned delight, pointed out that, if it were accepted, which Carmichael's experience did not certify, the writer would be run down within fourteen days, and that, so unreasonable a thing is human nature, some of the Presbytery might be less than pleased with their own likenesses. "It 's in the waste-paper basket," Carmichael said next morning, which, as the author was twenty-five years of age, and not conspicuously modest, is a conclusive testimonial to the goodness of one Presbytery, and its hold on the affection of its members.

Scots take their pleasures sadly, and no one can imagine from what arid soil they may not draw their nutriment, but it was not for motions of ponderous ambiguity and pragmatical points of order, that the minister of Kincairney rose before daybreak on a winter's morning, and worked his way to the nearest station, with the stars still overhead, and the snow below his feet, so that when the clerk made a sign to the Moderator punctually at one minute past eleven to "constitute the Presbytery," he might not be missing from his place. It was the longing of a lonely man, across whose front door no visitor had come for weeks, for friendly company; of a weary minister, discouraged by narrow circumstances, monotonous routine, unexpected disappointments among his people, for a word of good cheer. A cynical stranger might discover various stupidities, peculiarities, provincialisms in the Presbytery--he knew himself who had a temper, and who was a trifle sensitive about his rights--but this middle-aged, hard-working, simple-living man saw twenty faithful brethren--the elders did not count in this connection, for they did not understand--who stood beside him on occasion at the Holy Table, and gave him advice in his perplexities, and would bury him with honest regret when he died, and fight like wild cats that his widow and children should have their due. His toilsome journey was forgotten when Doctor Dowbiggin, in an interstice of motions, came across the floor and sat down beside him, and whispered confidentially, "Well, how are things going on at Kincairney?"--Dowbiggin really deserved his leadership--or when the clerk, suddenly wheeling round in his seat, would pass his snuff-box across to him without a word, for the clerk had a way of handing his box, which, being interpreted, ran as follows:--"You suppose that I am lifted above all ordinary affairs in my clerkly isolation, and that I do not know what a solid work you are doing for God and man in the obscure parish of Kincairney, but you are wrong. You have a very warm corner in my memory, and in sign thereof accept my box." And the said minister, trudging home that evening, and being met at a certain turn of the road by his wife--sentimental at fifty, you see, after a quarter of a century's toiling and preaching--would enlarge on Doctor Dowbiggin's cordiality, and the marked courtesy of the clerk, and when they were alone in the manse, his wife would kiss him--incredible to our cynic--and say, "You see, Tom, more people than I know what a good work you are doing," and Tom would start his twenty-first lecture on the Ephesians next morning with new spirit. Such is the power of comradeship, such is the thirst for sympathy; and indeed there is no dog either so big or so little that it does not appreciate a pat, and go down the street afterwards with better heart.

The Presbytery had always a tender regard for the Free Kirk of Drumtochty, and happened to treat Carmichael with much favour. When the "call" to him was signed at once by every member of the congregation, the clerk--who had been obliged to summon Donald Menzies from Gaelic by the intimation that Drumtochty was by the law of the Church "uni-lingual, and that all proceedings must be conducted in the English language"--arose and declared that "such unanimous attention to their ecclesiastical duties was unexampled in his experience;" and when at Carmichael's ordination a certain certificate was wanting, the clerk, whose intervention was regarded with awe, proposed that the court should anticipate its arrival, dealing with the matter "proleptically," and the court saw in the very word another proof of the clerk's masterly official genius. It was he also--expressing the mind of the Presbytery--who proposed that the Court should send Carmichael as a commissioner to the General Assembly in the first year of his ministry, and took occasion to remark that Mr. Carmichael, according to "reliable information at his disposal," was rendering important service to the Free Church in his sphere at Drumtochty. Carmichael was very happy in those days, and was so petted by his ecclesiastical superiors that he never missed a meeting of court, where he either sat in a demure silence, which commended him greatly to the old men, or conversed with his friends on a back bench about general affairs.

It gave him, therefore, a shock to sit with his brethren in the month of June--when the walk through the woods had been a joy, and Muirtown lay at her fairest, and the sunshine filled the court-room, and every man had a summer air, and Doctor Dowbiggin actually wore a rose in his coat--and to discover that he himself was sick of his old friends, of his work, of his people, of himself. The reasons were obvious. Was it not a sin that thirty Christian men should be cooped up in a room passing schedules when the summer was young and fresh upon the land? Could any one of the Rabbi's boys sit in that room and see his accustomed place--a corner next the wall on a back seat--empty, and not be cast down? Besides, does not a minister's year begin in September and end in July, and before it closes is not the minister at his lowest, having given away himself for eleven months? "One begins to weary for a rest," he whispered to Kincairney, and that worthy man explained that he and his wife had been planning their triennial holiday, and hoped to have a fortnight in Carnoustie. Carmichael realised his hypocrisy in that instant, for he knew perfectly that he had lost touch with life because of a hopeless love, and a proud face he had not seen a year ago. He flung himself out of the court with such impatience that the clerk stayed his hand in the midst of the sacred words _pro re nata_, and Kincairney mentioned to his wife in the evening that Carmichael had never got over Doctor Saunderson's death.

Carmichael wandered up one of the meadows which are the glory of Muirtown, and sat down by the queen of Scottish rivers, which runs deep and swift, clean and bright, from Loch Tay to the sea, between wooded banks and overhanging trees, past cornfields and ancient castles; a river for him who swims, or rows, or fishes, or dreams, in which, if such were to be his fate, a man might ask to be drowned. Opposite him began the woods of Muirtown Castle, and he tried to be glad that Kate . . . Miss Carnegie would one day be their mistress: the formal announcement of her engagement, he had heard, was to be made next week, on Lord Kilspindie's birthday. A distant whistle came on the clear air from Muirtown station, where . . . and all this turmoil of hope and fear, love and despair, had been packed into a few months. There is a bend in the river where he sits, and the salmon fishers have dropped their nets, and are now dragging them to the bank. With a thrill of sympathy Carmichael watched the fish struggling in the meshes, and his heart leapt when, through some mishandling, one escaped with a flash of silver and plunged into the river. He had also been caught quite suddenly in the joyous current of his life and held in bonds. Why should he not make a bold plunge for freedom, which he could never have with the Lodge at his doors, with the Castle only twelve miles away? He had been asked in his student days to go to the north-west of Canada and take charge of a parish fifty miles square. The idea had for a little fired his imagination, and then faded before other ambitions. It revived with power on the banks of that joyful, forceful river, and he saw himself beginning life again on the open prairie lands--riding, camping, shooting, preaching--a free man and an apostle to the Scottish Dispersion.

With this bracing resolution, that seemed a call of God to deliver him from bondage, came a longing to visit Kilbogie Manse and the Rabbi's grave. It was a journey of expiation, for Carmichael followed the road the Rabbi walked with the hand of death upon him after that lamentable Presbytery, and he marked the hills where the old man must have stood and fought for breath. He could see Mains, where he had gone with Doctor Saunderson to the exposition, and he passed the spot where the Rabbi had taken farewell of George Pitillo in a figure. What learning, and simplicity, and unselfishness, and honesty, and affection were mingled in the character of the Rabbi! What skill, and courage, and tenderness, and self-sacrifice, and humility there had been also in William MacLure, who had just died! Carmichael dwelt on the likeness and unlikeness of the two men, who had each loved the highest he knew and served his generation according to the will of God, till he found himself again with the Drumtochty doctor on his heroic journeys, with the Rabbi in his long vigils. It was a singular means of grace to have known two such men in the flesh, when he was still young and impressionable. A spiritual emotion possessed Carmichael. He lifted his heart to the Eternal, and prayed that if on account of any hardship he shrank from duty he might remember MacLure, and if in any intellectual strait he was tempted to palter with truth he might see the Rabbi pursuing his solitary way. The district was full of the Rabbi, who could not have gone for ever, who might appear any moment--buried in a book and proceeding steadily in the wrong direction. The Rabbi surely was not dead, and Carmichael drifted into that dear world of romance where what we desire comes to pass, and facts count for nothing. This was how the Idyll went. From the moment of the reconciliation the Rabbi's disease began to abate in a quite unheard of fashion--love wrought a miracle--and with Kate's nursing and his he speedily recovered. Things came right between Kate and himself as they shared their task of love, and so . . . of course--it took place last month--and now he was going to carry off the Rabbi, who somehow had not come to the Presbytery, to Drumtochty, where his bride would meet them both beneath the laburnum arch at the gate. He would be cunning as he approached the door of Kilbogie Manse, and walk on the grass border lest the Rabbi, poring over some Father, should hear the crunch of the gravel--he did know his footstep--and so he would take the old man by surprise. Alas! he need not take such care, for the walk was now as the border with grass, and the gate was lying open, and the dead house stared at him with open, unconscious eyes, and knew him not. The key was in the door, and he crossed the threshold once more--no need to beware of parcels on the floor now--and turned to the familiar room. The shelves had been taken down, but he could trace their lines on the ancient discoloured paper that was now revealed for the first time; there, where a new shutter was resting against the wall, used to stand the "seat of the fathers," and exactly in the midst of that heap of straw the Rabbi had his chair. . . .

"Ye 've come tae see hoo we 're getting on wi' the repairs"--it was the joiner of Kilbogie; "it's no a licht job, for there 's nae doot the hoose hes been awfu' negleckit. The Doctor wes a terrible scholar, but he wudna hae kent that the slates were aff the roof till the drap cam intae his bed.

"Ou aye, the manse is tae be papered an' pented for the new minister; a' cud show ye the papers; juist as ye please; they're verra tasty an' showy. He's tae be married at once, a 'm hearin', an' this is tae be the drawin'-room; he wes here ten days syne--the day after he wes eleckit: they 're aye in a hurry when they 're engaged--an' seleckit a sma' room upstairs for his study; he didna think he wud need as lairge a room for bukes, an' he thocht the auld study wud dae fine for pairties.

"There 's juist ae room feenished, an' ye micht like tae see the paper on 't; it's a yellow rose on a licht blue grund; a 'm jidgin' it wes the Doctor's ain room. Weel, it's a gude lang wy tae Drumtochty, an' ye 'll no be wantin' tae pit aff time, a' daresay."

It was a terrible douche of prose, and Carmichael was still shivering when he reached the kindly shade of Tochty woods. He had seen the successful candidate at the Presbytery arranging about his "trial discourses" with the clerk--who regarded him dubiously--and he had heard some story about his being a "popular hand," and bewitching the young people with a sermon on the "good fight," with four heads "the soldier," "the battle-field," "the battle," and "the crown"--each with an illustration, an anecdote, and a verse of poetry. Carmichael recognised the type, and already saw the new minister of Kilbogie, smug and self-satisfied, handing round cream and sugar in the Rabbi's old study, while his wife, a stout young woman in gay clothing, pours tea from a pot of florid design, and bearing a blazing marriage inscription. There would be a _soirée_ in the kirk, where the Rabbi had opened the mysteries of God, and his successor would explain how unworthy he felt to follow Doctor Saunderson, and how he was going to reorganise the congregation, and there would be many jocose allusions to his coming marriage; but Carmichael would by that time have left the district.

No one can walk a mile in Tochty woods, where there are little glades of mossy turf, and banks of violets and geraniums, and gentle creatures on ground and branch, and cool shade from the summer sun, and the sound of running water by your side, without being sweetened and comforted. Bitter thoughts and cynical criticisms, as well as vain regrets and peevish complaints, fell away from Carmichael's soul, and gave place to a gentle melancholy. He came to the heart of the wood, where was the lovers' grave, and the place seemed to invite his company. A sense of the tears of things came over him, and he sat down by the river-side to meditate. It was two hundred years and more since the lassies died, who were never wedded, and for him there was not even to be love. The ages were linked together by a long tragedy of disappointment and vanity, but the Tochty ran now as in the former days. What was any human life but a drop in the river that flowed without ceasing to the unknown sea? What could any one do but yield himself to necessity, and summon his courage to endure? Then at the singing of a bird his mood lightened and was changed, as if he had heard the Evangel. God was over all, and life was immortal, and he could not be wrong who did the will of God. After a day of conflict, peace came to his soul, and in the soft light of the setting sun he rose to go home.

"Miss Carnegie . . . I did not know you were here . . . I thought you were in London," and Carmichael stood before Kate in great confusion.

"Nor did I see you behind that tree"--Kate herself was startled. "Yes, the General and I have been visiting some old friends, and only came home an hour ago.

"Do you know"--Kate was herself again--"the first thing I do on arrival is to make a pilgrimage to this place. Half an hour here banishes the dust of a day's journey and of . . .

"Besides, I don't know whether you have heard"--Kate spoke hurriedly--"that it is now settled that I . . . we will be leaving the Lodge soon, and one wants to have as much as possible of the old place in the time remaining."

She gave him this opportunity in kindness, as it seemed, and he reproached himself because he did not offer his congratulations.

"You will, I . . . the people hope, come often here, Miss Carnegie, and not cast off Drumtochty, although the Lodge be not your home. You will always have a place in the hearts of the Glen. Marjorie will never be grateful enough for your readings," which was bravely said.

"Do you think that I can ever forget the Glen and my . . . friends here? Not while I live; the Carnegies have their own faults, but ingratitude is not one. Nor the dear Rabbi's grave." Then there was silence, which Carmichael found very trying--they had been so near that day in Kilbogie Manse, with only the Rabbi, who loved them both, between; but now, although they stood face to face, there was a gulf dividing them.

"It may not be easy for me to visit Drumtochty often, for you know there has been a change . . . in our circumstances, and one must suit oneself to it."

Carmichael flushed uneasily, and Kate supposed that he was sympathising with their losses.

"I hope to be a busy woman soon, with lots of work, and I shall use every one of my little scraps of knowledge. How do you think I shall acquit myself in my new role?"

It was a little hard on Carmichael, who was thinking of a countess, while Kate meant a governess.

"You need not ask me how I think you will do as . . . in any position, and I . . . wish you every success, and . . . (with a visible effort) happiness."

He spoke so stiffly that Kate sought about for reasons, and could only remember their quarrel and imagine he retained a grudge--which she thought was rather ungenerous.

"It occurs to me that one man ought to be thankful when we depart, for then he will be able to call Queen Mary names every Sunday without a misguided Jacobite girl dropping in to create a disturbance."

"Drumtochty will have to form its own opinion of poor Mary without my aid," and Carmichael smiled sadly in pardon of the past, "for it is likely, although no one knows this in the Glen, that I shall soon be far away."

"Leaving Drumtochty? What will Marjorie do without you, and Dr. Davidson, and . . . all the people?" Then, remembering Janet's gossip, and her voice freezing, "I suppose you have got a better or more convenient living. The Glen is certainly rather inaccessible."

"Have I done anything, Miss Carnegie, to justify you in thinking that I would leave the Glen, which has been so good to me, for . . . worldly reasons? There is enough to support an unmarried man, and I am not likely to . . . to marry," said Carmichael, bitterly; "but there are times when it is better for a man to change his whole surroundings and make a new life."

It was clear that the Bailie's daughter was a romance of Janet's Celtic imagination, and Kate's manner softened.

"The Rabbi's death and . . . your difference of opinion--something about doctrine, was n't it? we were from home--must have been a great trial, and, as there was no opportunity before, let me say how much we sympathised with you and . . . thought of you.

"Do you think, however, Mr. Carmichael"--she spoke with hesitation, but much kindness--"that you ought to fling up your work here on that account? Would not the Rabbi himself have wished you to stick to your post? . . . and all your friends would like to think you had been . . . brave."

"You are cruel, Miss Carnegie; you try me beyond what I can endure, although I shall be ashamed to-night for what I am to say. Do you not know or guess that it is your . . . on account of you, I mean, that I must leave Drumtochty?"

"On account of me?" Kate looked at him in unaffected amazement.

"Are you blind, or is it that you could not suspect me of such presumption? Had you no idea that night in Dr. Davidson's drawing-room? Have you never seen that I . . . Kate--I will say it once to your face as I say it every hour to myself--you won my heart in an instant on Muirtown Station, and will hold it till I die.

"Do not speak till I be done, and then order me from your presence as I deserve, I know that it is unworthy of a gentleman, and . . . a minister of Christ to say such things to the betrothed of another man; only one minute more"--for Kate had started as if in anger--"I know also that if I were stronger I could go on living as before, and meet you from time to time when you came from the Castle with your husband, and never allow myself to think of Lady Hay as I felt to Miss Carnegie. But I am afraid of myself, and . . . this is the last time we shall meet, Miss Carnegie. Forgive me for my love, and believe that one man will ever remember and . . . pray for you."

Carmichael bowed low, the last sunshine of the evening playing on his fair hair, and turned to go.

"One word, if you please," said Kate, and they looked into one another's eyes, the blue and brown, seeing many things that cannot be written. "You may be forgiven for . . . loving me, because you could not help that"--this with a very roguish look, our Kate all over--"and I suppose you must be forgiven for listening to foolish gossip, since people will tell lies"--this with a stamp of the foot, our Kate again--"but I shall never forgive you if you leave me, never"--this was a new Kate, like to the opening of a flower.

"Why? Tell me plainly," and in the silence Carmichael heard a trout leap in the river.

"Because I love you."

The Tochty water sang a pleasant song, and the sun set gloriously behind Ben Urtach.