Bog-Myrtle and Peat Part 44

Duncan Rowallan seemed to rise into another world, as in his childhood he had often dreamed of doing, looking up and up into the fleecy waves of the highest cloudlets. Her lips beckoned to him in the gloaming, like a red flower whose petals have fallen a little apart. It came at last.

For the d.y.k.e proved too narrow, and in one swift electric touch their old world flew into flinders.

The stone d.y.k.e was not any longer between. Duncan Rowallan had overleaped it and stood by the side of Grace Hutchison.

The minister had come home to Howpaslet manse exceedingly elate. At last he had won the battle. The Kers had gone home gnas.h.i.+ng their teeth.

There was lament in the manse of the Calvins. After long endeavours he had got the farmer and the publican to vote for the dismissal of Duncan Rowallan. He smiled to himself as he came in. He was not a malicious man, but he could not bear being worsted in his own parish. His feeling against Duncan Rowallan was neither here nor there; but, indeed, the Kers were hard to bear.

His daughter met him with a grave face. The determined Hutchison blood ran still and sure in her veins.

"Father," she said, "what I am going to tell you will give you pain: I have promised to marry Duncan Rowallan."

The stern old minister swayed--doubting whether he had heard aright.

"Marry Duncan Rowallan, the dominie!" he said; "the la.s.sie's gane gyte!

He's dismissed and a pauper!"

"No," she said; "on the contrary, he has got a masters.h.i.+p at the High School. I have promised to marry him."

The old man said no word. He did not try to hector Grace, as he would have done any one outside the manse. Her household autocracy a.s.serted itself even in that supreme moment. Besides, he knew that it would be so useless, for she was his own child. He put one hand up uncertainly and smoothed his brow vaguely, as though something hurt him and he did not understand.

He sat down in his great chair, and took up a little fire-screen that had stood many years by his chair. Grace had worked it as a sampler when as a little girl she went to the village school and had slept at night in his room in a little trundle-bed. He looked at it strangely.

"Grade," he said, "Gracie--my wee Gracie!"--and then he set the fire-screen down very gently. "I am an old man and full of years," he said. He looked worn and broken.

Grace went quickly and put her arms about his neck.

"No, no, father," she said; "you have only gained a son."

But the old man's pa.s.sions could not turn so quickly, not having the pliancy of youth and love. He only shook his head sadly.

"Not so," he said; "I am left a lonely man--my house is left unto me desolate."

Yet, nevertheless, Grace was right. He stays with them for a month every a.s.sembly time, and lectures them daily on the relations of Church and State.

II

A FINISHED YOUNG LADY

I

_I cannot send thee gold Nor silver for a show; Nor are there jewels sold One-half so dear as thou_.

II

_No daffodil doth blow In this dull winter time, Nor purple violet grow In so unkind a clime_.

III

_To-day I have not got One spray of meadow-sweet, Nor blue forget-me-not My posy to complete_.

IV

_Yet none of these can claim So much goodwill as you; Their lips put not to shame Cowslip end Oxlip too_.

V

_But joy I'll take in this, Pleasure more sweet than all, If thou this book but kiss As Love's memorial_.

There were few bigger men in the West of Scotland than Fergus Teeman, the grocer in Port Ryan. He had come from Glasgow and set up in quite grand style, succeeding to the business of his uncle, John M'Connell, who had spent all his days selling treacle and snuff to the guidwives of the Port. When Fergus Teeman came from Glasgow, he found that he could not abide the small-paned, gloomy windows of the grocer's shop at the corner, so in a little while the whole shop became window and door, overfrowned by mere eyebrows of chocolate-coloured eaves.

He had a broad and gorgeous sign specially painted in place of the old "_John M'Connell, licensed to sell Tea, Coffee, and Tobacco_," which had so long occupied its place. Then he dismounted the crossed pipes and the row of sweetie-bottles, and filled the great windows according to the latest canons of Glasgow retail provision-trade taste. The result was amazing, and for days there was the danger of a block before the windows. It was as good as a peep-show, and considerably cheaper. As many as four boys and a woman with a shawl over her head, had been counted on the pavement in front of the shop at once--a fact which the people in the next town refused to credit.

Fergus Teeman was a business man. He was "no gentleman going about with his hands in his pockets"--he said so himself. And so far he was right, for, let his hands be where they might, certainly he was no gentleman.

But, for all that, he was a big man in Port Ryan, and it was a great day for the Kirk in the Vennel when Fergus Teeman led his family to wors.h.i.+p within the precincts of that modest Zion. They made much of him there, and Fergus sunned himself in his pew in the pleasing warmth of his own greatness.

In the congregation from whence he had come he had not been accustomed to be so treated. He had held a seat far under the gallery; but in the Kirk in the Vennel he had the corner seat opposite to the manse pew.

There Fergus installed his wife and family, and there last of all he shut himself in with a bang. He then looked pityingly around as his women-folk reverently bent a moment forward on the book-board. That was well enough for women, but a leading grocer could not so bemean himself.

In a few months Fergus started a van. This was a new thing about the Port. The van was for the purpose of conveying the goods and benefits of the Emporium to the remoter villages. The van was resplendent with paint and gilding. It was covered with advertis.e.m.e.nts of its contents executed in the highest style of art. The Kirk in the Vennel felt the reflected glory, and promptly elected him an elder. A man _must_ be a good man to come so regularly to ordinances and own such a van. The wife of this magnificent member of society was, like the female of so many of the lower animals, of modest mien and a retiring plumage. She sat much in the back parlour; and even when she came out, she crept along in the shadow of the houses.

"Na," said Jess Kissock of the Bow Head, "it's no' a licht thing to be wife to sic a man"--which, indeed, it a.s.suredly was not. Mrs. Fergus Teeman could have given some evidence on that subject, but she only hid her secrets under the shabby breast of her stuff gown.

There was said to be a daughter at a boarding-school employed in "finis.h.i.+ng," whatever that might be. There were also various boys like steps in an uneven stair, models of all the virtues under their father's eye, and perfect demons on the street--that is, on the streets of Port Ryan which were not glared upon by the omniscient plate-gla.s.s of Teeman's Emporium.

There was no minister in the Kirk in the Vennel when Fergus Teeman came to Port Ryan. The last one had got another kirk after fifteen years'

service, thirteen of which he had spent in fis.h.i.+ng for just such a call as he got, being heartily tired of the miserable ways of his congregation. When he received the invitation, he waited a week before he thought it would be decent to say, that perhaps he might have seriously to consider whether this were not a direct leading of Providence. On the following Thursday he accepted. On the Monday he left Port Ryan for ever, directing his meagre properties to be sent after him. He shook his fist at the town as the train moved out.

So Fergus Teeman was just in time to come in for the new election, which seemed like a favouritism of Providence to a new man--for, of course, he was put on the committee which was to choose the candidates.

Then there was a great preaching. All the candidates stopped with Mr.

Teeman. This suited the Kirk in the Vennel, for it was a saving in expense. It also suited Fergus Teeman, for it allowed him to sound them on all the subjects which interested him. And, as he said, the expense was really a mere trifle, so long as one did not give them ham and eggs for their breakfast. It is not good to preach on ham and eggs. It spoils the voice. Fergus Teeman had a cutting out of the Glasgow _Weekly Flail_, an able paper which is the Sat.u.r.day Bible of those parts. This extract said that Adelina Patti could not sing for five hours after ham and eggs. It is just the same with preaching. Fergus, therefore, read this to the candidates, and gave them for breakfast plain bread and b.u.t.ter (best Irish cooking, 6-1/2d. per pound).

Fergus was an orthodox man. His first question was, "How long are you out of the college?" His next, "Were you under Professor Robertson?" His third, "Do ye haud wi' hymn-singin', street-preachin', revival meetings, and novel-reading?"

From the answers to these questions Fergus Teeman formed his own short leet. It was a very short one. There was only the Rev. Farish Farintosh upon it. He took "cent.-per-cent." in the examination. Some of the others made a point or two in their host's estimation, but Farish Farintosh cleared the paper. He was just out of college that very month--which was true. (But he did not say that he had been detained a year or two, endeavouring to overcome the strange scruples of the Examination Board.) He had studied under Professor Robertson, and had frequently proved him wrong to his very face in the cla.s.s, till the students could not keep from laughing (which, between ourselves, was a lie). He was no hypocrite, advanced critic, or teetotaler, and would scorn to say he was. (He smelled Fergus Teeman's breath. He had been a staunch teetotaler at another vacancy the Sat.u.r.day before.) He would not open a hymn-book for thirty pounds. This was the very man for Fergus Teeman. So they made a night of it, and consumed five "rake" of hot water. Hot water is good for the preaching.

But, strange to say, when the day of the voting came, the congregation would by no means have the Reverend Farish Farintosh, though his claims were vehemently urged by the grocer in a speech, with strange blanks in the places where the strong words would have come on other occasions.

They elected instead a mere n.o.body of a young beardless boy, who had been a year or two in a city mission, and whose only recommendation was that he had very successfully worked among the poor of his district.

Fergus Teeman stated his opinions of the new minister, across his counter, often and vehemently.

"The laddie kens nae mair nor a guano-bag. There's nocht in him but what the spoon pits intil him. He hasna the s.p.u.n.k o' a rabbit. I tell ye what, we need a man o' wecht in oor kirk. _Come up oot o' there, boy; ye're lickin' that sugar again_! Na, he'll ken wha he's preachin' till, when he stands up afore me. My e'e wull be on him nicht and day. _Hae ye no thae bags made yet? Gin they're no' dune in five meenits, I'll knock the heid aff ye_!"