The Stickit Minister's Wooing, and Other Galloway Stories

Eight years ago "The Stickit Minister" stood friendless without the door of letters. He knew no one within, and feared greatly lest no hand of welcome should be held out to him...

"That's all you know, Robert," he said; "why, they come all the way to Cairn Edward after me if their little finger aches, let alone over here. I daresay some of the brats have...

Upon one afternoon every week, Professor Galbraith read with his students the "Greek Oreeginal." He prescribed half-a-dozen chapters of "Romans" or "Hebrews," and expected us to...

On Saturday morning Gilbert put on his longest tails and his doggiest collar and marched boldly up to the front door of the manse, with the general air of playing himself along...

It was whispered, on what authority did not appear, that the disease was of the malignant "black" variety, and that all smitten must surely die. Fear ran swift and chilly up eac...

He had for some time been a leading Director of the Association for the Propagation of Gospel Literature; and so in both capacities he was the Doctor's master. Then, having gath...

"And you--you are different too. What is it?" he returned, gazing openly at her, as indeed he had been doing ever since they met. She turned her face piquantly towards him. It w...

After a while I began by severe study to get to the bottom of a Do-Nothing's philosophy. To do the appointed task for the performance of which duty calls, man waits, and money w...

"That may be a good enough argument," I said to myself, "but--I have seen a minister's neckcloth hung over the back of a chair, and shaving-soap on his chafts on Sabbath morning...

Yet I own the matter troubled me. I had a rival who--no, he did not understand more of the case than myself. But all the same, I wanted to find him out--in the interests of the...

Elspeth was young and she was not critical. Lowe's simple and to the modern mind somewhat obvious verse, seemed to her to contain the essence of truth and feeling. But on the ot...

She put her hands to her face and sobbed into them. Then for the first time Elspeth looked at her. Hitherto she had been staring straight out at the window. So she had seen the...

But the third time was as the mistress thereof. For she and the elder's daughter nursed Allan Syme through into safety. For the very day that Allan was stricken, a great rain fe...

"He was a rude boor. And when I told him so he only laughed and said: 'For a' that ye'll maybe be glad to see me the next time I come--even if I bring a hearse for ye to ride to...

"So at Elspeth's some half-dozen of us were drinking down the short dark hours of an August night. It was now the lull between the hay-winning and the corn-shearing. For hairst...

"So, minding me on that heartsome and memorable night, together with other things more recent, I was not perhaps very anxious about the affection of Rachel Pringle. For I though...

"In no long space of time his reverence set a shock head out of the window to ask what was the din. The which he did in a bold manner, as though he were the lord and master of t...

There was the savour of an infinite discernment in the slow "Aye?" with which he was wont to receive any doubtful statement. My mother said ever ten words for his one, and it wa...

"Then I will bring the doctor, and nurse you mysel'," he answered. But within him he said: "So it was Martha o' the Glen. For this thing will I reckon with Martha Yeatman."

"Oh, that weary toon!" she said afterwards. "The streets sae het and dry, the blawin' stoor, the peetifu' bairns in the gutter, and the puir chapman's joes standin' at the close...

As they came nearer, the great high-mounted head-wheels of pit Number Four were spinning furiously, and over the mounds which led to it little ant-like figures were hurrying. A...

Now, John McWhan's Zion was not one of the greater and richer denominations into which Presbytery in Scotland is unhappily divided. It was but a small and poor "body" of the fai...

"You know old Davie Slimmon, the keeper up at the lodge? You remember I doctored his foot when he got it bitten with an adder. Well, anyway, he would do anything for me. I've ha...

Sticks were stacked in the little wood-shed which Doog had set up in the first virtuous glow of husbandhood--and never been inside since. No hens laid like Dahlia's--and the str...