Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers Part 14

"Come awa' tae the dog-cart, sir," said Mains, realising that even Kilbogie did not know what a singular gift they had obtained, and that discussion on such sublunary matters as pots and pans was useless, not to say profane. So eight carts got a box each; one, Jeremiah's ancient kist of moderate dimensions; and the tenth--that none might be left unrecognised--a handbag that had been on the twelve years' probation with its master. The story grew as it pa.s.sed westwards, and when it reached us we were given to understand that the Free Kirk minister of Kilbogie had come to his parish with his clothing in a paper parcel and twenty-four packing cases filled with books, in as many languages--half of them dating from the introduction of printing, and fastened by silver clasps--and that if Drumtochty seriously desired to hear an intellectual sermon at a time, we must take our way through Tochty woods.

Mrs. Pitillo took the minister into her hands, and compelled him to accompany her to Muirtown, where she had him at her will for some time, so that she equipped the kitchen (fully), a dining-room (fairly), a spare bedroom (amply), Mr. Saunderson's own bedroom (miserably), and secured a table and two chairs for the study. This success turned her head. Full of motherly forethought, and having a keen remembrance that probationers always retired in the afternoon at Mains to think over the evening's address, and left an impress of the human form on the bed when they came down to tea, Mrs. Pitillo suggested that a sofa would be an admirable addition to the study. As soon as this piece of furniture, of a size suitable for his six feet, was pointed out to the minister, he took fright, and became quite unmanageable. He would not have such an article in his study on any account, partly because it would only feed a tendency to sloth--which, he explained, was one of his besetting sins--and partly because it would curtail the s.p.a.ce available for books, which, he indicated, were the proper furniture of any room, but chiefly of a study. So great was his alarm that he repented of too early concessions about the other rooms, and explained to Mrs. Pitillo that every inch of s.p.a.ce must be rigidly kept for the overflow from the study, which he expected--if he were spared--would reach the garrets. Several times on their way back to Kilbogie, Saunderson looked wistfully at Mrs. Pitillo, and once opened his mouth as if to speak, from which she gathered that he was grateful for her kindness, but dared not yield any farther to the luxuries of the flesh.

What this worthy woman endured in securing a succession of reliable housekeepers for Mr. Saunderson and overseeing the interior of that remarkable home, she was never able to explain to her own satisfaction, though she made many honest efforts, and one of her last intelligible utterances was a lamentable prophecy of the final estate of the Free Church manse of Kilbogie. Mr. Saunderson himself seemed at times to have some vague idea of her painful services, and once mentioned her name to Carmichael in feeling terms. There had been some delay in providing for the bodily wants of the visitor after his eight miles'

walk from Drumtochty, and it seemed likely that he would be obliged to take his meal standing for want of a chair.

"While Mrs. Pitillo lived, I have a strong impression, almost amounting to certainty, that the domestic arrangements of the manse were better ordered; she had the episcopal faculty in quite a conspicuous degree, and was, I have often thought, a woman of sound judgment.

"We were not able at all times to see eye to eye, as she had an unfortunate tendency to meddle with my books and papers, and to arrange them after an artificial fas.h.i.+on. This she called tidying, and, in its most extreme form, cleaning."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "She had an unfortunate tendency to meddle with my books."]

"With all her excellencies, there was also in her what I have noticed in most women, a certain flavour of guile, and on one occasion, when I was making a brief journey through Holland and France in search of comely editions of the fathers, she had the books carried out to the garden and dusted. It was the s.p.a.ce of two years before I regained mastery of my library again, and unto this day I cannot lay my hands on the service book of King Henry VIII., which I had in the second edition, to say nothing of an original edition of Rutherford's _Lex Rex_.

"It does not become me, however, to reflect on the efforts of that worthy matron, for she was by nature a good woman, and if any one could be saved by good works, her place is a.s.sured. I was with her before she died, and her last words to me were, 'Tell Jean tae dust yir bukes aince in the sax months, and for ony sake keep ae chair for sittin'

on.' It was not the testimony one would have desired in the circ.u.mstances, but yet, Mr. Carmichael, I have often thought that there was a spirit of . . . of unselfishness, in fact, that showed the working of grace." Later in the same evening Mr. Saunderson's mind returned to his friend's spiritual state, for he entered into a long argument to show that while Mary was more spiritual, Martha must also have been within the Divine Election.

CHAPTER XI.

IN THE GLOAMING.

August is our summer time in the north, and Carmichael found it pleasant walking from Lynedoch bridge to Kilbogie. The softness of the gloaming, and the freshness of the falling dew, and the scent of the honeysuckle in the hedge, and the smell of the cut corn in the fields--for harvest is earlier down there than with us--and the cattle chewing the cud, and the sheltering shadow of old beech trees, shed peace upon him and touched the young minister's imagination. Fancies he may have had in early youth, but he had never loved any woman except his mother and his aunt. There had been times when he and his set declared they would never marry, and one, whose heart was understood to be blighted, had drawn up the const.i.tution of a celibate Union. It was never completed--and therefore never signed--because the brotherhood could not agree about the duration of the vows--the draftsman, who has been twice married since then, standing stiffly for their perpetuity, while the others considered that a dispensing power might be lodged in the Moderator of a.s.sembly.

This railing against marriage on the part of his friends was pure boyishness, and they all were engaged on the mere prospect of a kirk, but Carmichael had more of a mind on the matter. There was in him an ascetic bent, inherited from some Catholic ancestor, and he was almost convinced that a minister would serve G.o.d with more abandonment in the celibate state. As an only child, and brought up by a mother given to n.o.ble thoughts, he had learned to set women in a place by themselves, and considered marriage for ordinary men to flavour of sacrilege. His mother had bound it as a law upon him that he was never to exercise his tongue on a woman's failings, never to argue with a woman unto her embarra.s.sment, never to regard her otherwise than as his superior.

Women noticed that Carmichael bore himself to them as if each were a Madonna, and treated him in turn according to their nature. Some were abashed, and could not understand the lad's shyness; those were saints.

Some were amused, and suspected him of sarcasm; those were less than saints. Some horrified him unto confusion of face because of the shameful things they said. One middle-aged female, whose conversation oscillated between physiology and rescue work, compelled Carmichael to sue for mercy on the ground that he had not been accustomed to speak about such details of life with a woman, and ever afterwards described him as a prude. It seemed to Carmichael that he was disliked by some women because he thought more highly of them than they thought of themselves.

Carmichael was much tried by the baser of his fellow-students, especially a certain cla.s.s of smug, self-contented, unctuous men, who neither had endured hards.h.i.+p to get to college, nor did any work at college. They were described in reports as the "fruits of the revival," and had been taken from behind counters and sent to the University, not because they had any love of letters, like Domsie's lads at Drumtochty, but because rich old ladies were much impressed by the young men's talk, and the young men were perfectly aware that they would be better off in the ministry than in any situation they could gain by their own merits. As Carmichael grew older, and therefore more charitable, he discovered with what faulty tools the work of the world and even of kirks is carried on, and how there is a root of good in very coa.r.s.e and common souls. When he was a young judge--from whom may the Eternal deliver us all--he was bitter against the "fruits," as he called them, because they did their best to escape examinations, and spoke in a falsetto voice, and had no interest in dogs, and because they told incredible tales of their spiritual achievements. But chiefly did Carmichael's gorge rise against those unfortunates because of the mean way they spoke of marriage, and on this account, being a high-spirited young fellow, he said things which could hardly be defended, and of which afterwards he honestly repented.

"Yes, religion is profitable for both worlds," one of them would exhort by the junior common-room fire, "and if you doubt it, look at me; five-and-twenty s.h.i.+llings a week as a draper's a.s.sistant was all I had, and no chance of rising. Now I 'm a gentleman"--here Carmichael used to look at the uncleanly little man and snort--"and in two years I could ask any girl in religious society, and she would take me. A minister can marry any woman, if he be evangelical. Ah," he would conclude, with a fine strain of piety, "the Gospel is its own reward."

What enraged Carmichael as he listened in the distance to these paeans of Pharisaism was the disgusting fact that the "fruits" did carry off great spoil in the marriage field, so that to a minister without culture, manners, or manliness, a middle-cla.s.s family would give their pet daughter, when they would have refused her to a ten times better man fighting his way up in commerce. If she died, then this enterprising buccaneer would achieve a second and third conquest, till in old age he would rival the patriarchs in the number of his wives and possessions. As for the girl, Carmichael concluded that she was still under the glamour of an ancient superst.i.tion, and took the veil after a very commonplace and squalid Protestant fas.h.i.+on. This particular "fruit" against whom Carmichael in his young uncharitableness especially raged, because he was more self-complacent and more illiterate than his fellows, married the daughter of a rich self-made man, and on the father's death developed a peculiar form of throat disease, which laid him aside from the active work of the ministry--a mysterious providence, as he often explained--but allowed him to enjoy life with a guarded satisfaction. What Carmichael said to him about his ways and his Gospel was very unpleasant and quite unlike Carmichael's kindly nature, but the only revenge the victim took was to state his conviction that Scotland would have nothing to do with a man that was utterly worldly, and in after years to warn vacant churches against one who did not preach the Cross.

After one of those common-room encounters, Carmichael used to fling himself out into the east wind and greyness of Edinburgh, fuming against the simplicity of good people, against the provincialism of his college, against the Pharisaism of his church, against the Philistinism of Scottish life. He would go down to Holyrood and pity Queen Mary, transported from the gay court of France to Knox's Scotland, divided between theology and bloodshed. In the evening he would sweep his table clean of German books on the Pentateuch, and cover it with prints of the old masters, which he had begun to collect, and ancient books of Catholic devotion, and read two letters to his mother from her uncle, who had been a Vicar-General, and died in an old Scottish convent in Spain. There was very little in the letters beyond good wishes, and an account of the Vicar-General's health, but they seemed to link a Free Kirk divinity student on to the Holy Catholic Church. Mother Church cast her spell over his imagination, and he envied the lot of her priests, who held a commission no man denied and administered a world-wide wors.h.i.+p, whom a splendid tradition sanctioned, whom each of the arts hastened to aid; while he was to be the minister of a local sect and work with the "fruits," who knew nothing of Catholic Christianity, but supposed their little eddy, whereon they danced like rotten sticks, to be the main stream. Next day a reaction would set in, and Carmichael would have a fit of Bohemianism, and resolve to be a man of letters. So the big books on theology would again be set aside, and he would write an article for _Ferrier's Journal_, that kindliest of all journals to the young author, which he would receive back in a week "with thanks." The Sunday night came, and Carmichael sat down to write his weekly letter to his mother--she got notes between, he found them all in her drawers, not a sc.r.a.p missing--and as he wrote, his prejudices, and petulances, and fancies, and unrest pa.s.sed away.

Before he had told her all that happened to him during the week--touching gently on the poor Revivalist--although his mother had a saving sense of humour, and was a quite wonderful mimic--and saying nothing of his evening with St. Francis de Sales--for this would have alarmed her at once--he knew perfectly well that he would be neither a Roman nor a reporter, but a Free Kirk minister, and was not utterly cast down; for notwithstanding the yeasty commotion of youth and its censoriousness, he had a shrewd idea that a man is likely to do his life-work best in the tradition of his faith and blood. Next morning his heart warmed as he went in through the college gates, and he would have defended Knox unto the death, as the maker of Scotland. His fellow-students seemed now a very honest set of men, as indeed they were, although a trifle limited in horizon, and he hoped that one of the "fruits" was "satisfied with his Sunday's work," which shows that as often as a man of twenty-one gets out of touch with reality, he ought straightway to sit down and write to his mother. Carmichael indeed told me one evening at the Cottage that he never had any mystical call to the ministry, but only had entered the Divinity Hall instead of going to Oxford because his mother had this for her heart's desire, and he loved her. As a layman it perhaps did not become me to judge mysteries, but I dared to say that any man might well be guided by his mother in religion, and that the closer he kept to her memory the better he would do his work. After which both of us smoked furiously, and Carmichael, two minutes later, was moved to remark that some Turkish I had then was enough to lure a man up Glen Urtach in the month of December.

The young minister was stirred on the way to Kilbogie, and began to dream dreams in the twilight. Love had come suddenly to him, and after an unexpected fas.h.i.+on. Miss Carnegie was of another rank and another faith, nor was she even his ideal woman, neither conspicuously spiritual nor gentle, but frank, outspoken, fearless, self-willed. He could also see that she had been spoiled by her father and his friends, who had given her _carte blanche_ to say and do what she pleased. Very likely--he could admit that even in the first blush of his emotion--she might be pa.s.sionate and prejudiced on occasion, even a fierce hater.

This he had imagined in the Tochty woods, and was not afraid, for her imperfections seemed to him a provocation and an attraction. They were the defects of her qualities--of her courage, candour, generosity, affection. Carmichael leant upon a stile, and recalled the carriage of her head, the quick flash of her eye, the tap of her foot, the fascination of her manner. She was free from the affectations, gaucheries, commonplaces, wearinesses of many good women he had known.

St. Theresa had been the woman enshrined in the tabernacle of his heart, but life might have been a trifle tiresome if a man were married to a saint. The saints have no humour, and do not relax. Life with a woman like Miss Carnegie would be effervescent and stimulating, full of surprises and piquancy. No, she was not a saint, but he felt by an instinct she was pure, loyal, reverent, and true at the core. She was a gallant la.s.s, and . . . he loved her.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mother Church cast her spell over his imagination.]

What an absurdity was this revery, and Carmichael laughed aloud at himself. Twice he had met Miss Carnegie--on one occasion she had found him watering strange dogs out of his hat, and on the other he had given her to understand that women were little removed from fools. He had made the worst of himself, and this young woman who had lived with smart people must have laughed at him. Very likely she had made him into a story, for as a raconteur himself he knew the temptation to work up raw material, or perhaps Miss Carnegie had forgotten long ago that he had called. Suppose that he should call to-morrow on his way home and say, "General Carnegie, I think it right to tell you that I admire your daughter very much, and should like your permission to pay my addresses. I am Free Church minister in Drumtochty, and my stipend is 200 pounds a year" . . . his laugh this time was rather bitter. The Carnegies would be at once admitted into the county set, and he would only meet them at a time . . . Lord Hay was a handsome and pleasant young fellow. He would be at Glen Urtach House for the shooting in a few days . . . that was a likely thing to happen . . . the families were old friends . . . there would be great festivities in the Glen . . . perhaps he would be asked to propose the bride's health . . . It really seemed a providence that Saunderson should come along the road when he was playing the fool like a puling boy, for if any man could give a douche to love-sickness it was the minister of Kilbogie.

Carmichael was standing in the shadow as Saunderson came along the road, and the faint light was a perfect atmosphere for the dear old bookman. Standing at his full height he might have been six feet, but with much poring over books and meditation he had descended some three inches. His hair was long, not because he made any conscious claim to genius, but because he forgot to get it cut, and with his flowing, untrimmed beard, was now quite grey. Within his clothes he was the merest skeleton, being so thin that his shoulder-blades stood out in sharp outline, and his hands were almost transparent. The redeeming feature in Saunderson was his eyes, which were large and eloquent, of a trustful, wistful hazel, the beautiful eyes of a dumb animal. Whether he was expounding doctrines of an incredible disbelief in humanity or exalting, in rare moments, the riches of a divine love in which he did not expect to share, or humbly beseeching his brethren to give him information on some point in scholars.h.i.+p no one knew anything about except himself, or stroking the hair of some little child sitting upon his knee, those eyes were ever simple, honest, and most pathetic.

Young ministers coming to the Presbytery full of self-conceit and new views were arrested by their light s.h.i.+ning through the gla.s.ses, and came in a year or two to have a profound regard for Saunderson, curiously compounded of amus.e.m.e.nt at his ways, which for strangeness were quite beyond imagination, admiration for his knowledge, which was amazing for its accuracy and comprehensiveness, respect for his honesty, which feared no conclusion, however repellent to flesh and blood, but chiefly of love for the unaffected and s.h.i.+ning goodness of a man in whose virgin soul neither self nor this world had any part. For years the youngsters of the Presbytery knew not how to address the minister of Kilbogie, since any one who had dared to call him Saunderson, as they said "Carmichael" and even "MacWheep," though he was elderly, would have been deposed, without delay, from the ministry--so much reverence at least was in the lads--and "Mister"

attached to this personality would be like a silk hat on the head of an Eastern sage. Jenkins of Pitrodie always considered that he was inspired when he one day called Saunderson "Rabbi," and unto the day of his death Kilbogie was so called. He made protest against the t.i.tle as being forbidden in the Gospels, but the lads insisted that it must be understood in the sense of scholar, whereupon Saunderson disowned it on the ground of his slender attainments. The lads saw the force of this objection, and admitted that the honourable word belonged by rights to MacWheep, but it was their fancy to a.s.sign it to Saunderson--whereat Saunderson yielded, only exacting a pledge that he should never be so called in public, lest all concerned be condemned for foolishness.

When it was announced that the University of Edinburgh had resolved to confer the degree of D. D. on him for his distinguished learning and great services to theological scholars.h.i.+p, Saunderson, who was delighted when Dowbiggin of Muirtown got the honour for being an ecclesiastic, would have refused it for himself had not his boys gone out in a body and compelled him to accept. They also purchased a Doctor's gown and hood, and invested him with them in the name of Kilbogie two days before the capping. One of them saw that he was duly brought to the Tolbooth Kirk, where the capping ceremonial in those days took place. Another sent a list of Saunderson's articles to British and foreign theological and philological reviews, which filled half a column of the _Caledonian_, and drew forth a complimentary article from that exceedingly able and caustic paper, whose editor lost all his hair through sympathetic emotion the morning of the Disruption, and ever afterwards pointed out the faults of the Free Kirk with much frankness. The fame of Rabbi Saunderson was so spread abroad that a great cheer went up as he came in with the other Doctors elect, in which he cordially joined, considering it to be intended for his neighbour, a successful West-end clergyman, the author of a Life of Dorcas and other pleasing booklets. For some time after his boys said "Doctor" in every third sentence, and then grew weary of a too common t.i.tle, and fell back on Rabbi, by which he was known unto the day of his death, and which is now engraved on his tombstone.

The Rabbi was tasting some morsel of literature as he came along, and halted opposite Carmichael, whom he did not see in the shadow, that he might enjoy it aloud.

"That is French verse, Rabbi, I think, but it sounds archaic; is it from a Huguenot poet?"

"a.s.suredly," replied the Rabbi, not one whit astonished that a man should come out from a hedge on Kilbogie road and recognise his quotation; "from Clement Marot, whom, as you remember, there is good evidence Queen Mary used to read. It is you, John Carmichael." The Rabbi awoke from the past, and held Carmichael's hand in both of his.

"This was very mindful. You were going home from Pitscowrie and turned aside to visit me.

"It is unfortunate that I am hastening to a farm called the Mains, on the border of Pitscourie parish, to expound the Word; but you will go on to the Manse and straitly charge Barbara to give you food, and I will hasten to return." And the Rabbi looked forward to the night with great satisfaction.

"No, I am not coming from Pitscowrie, and you are not going there, as far as one can see. Why, you are on your way to Tochty woods; you are going west instead of east; Rabbi, tell the truth, have you been snuffing?"

This was a searching question, and full of history. When the Rabbi turned his back against the wind to snuff with greater comfort, he was not careful to resume his original position, but continued cheerfully in the new direction. This weakness was so well known that the school bairns would watch till he had started, and stand in a row on the road to block his progress. Then there would be a parley, which would end in the Rabbi capitulating and rewarding the children with peppermints, whereupon they would see him fairly off again and go on their way--often looking back to see that he was safe, and somehow loving him all the more for his strange ways. So much indeed was the Rabbi beloved that a Pitscowrie laddie, who described Saunderson freely as a "daftie" to Mains' grandson, did not see clearly for a week, and never recovered his lost front tooth.

"That," remarked young Mains, "'ll learn Pitscowrie tae set up impidence aboot the minister."

"There is no doubt, that I snuffed--it was at Claypots steading--but there was no wind that I should turn. This is very remarkable, John, and . . . disconcerting.

"These humiliations are doubtless a lesson," resumed the Rabbi as they hurried to Mains, "and a rebuke. Snuffing is in no sense a necessity, and I have long recognised that the habit requires to be restricted--very carefully restricted. For some time I have had fixed times--once in the forenoon, once in the afternoon, and again in the evening. Had I restrained myself till my work was over and I had returned home this misadventure would not have occurred, whereby I have been hindered and the people will have been kept waiting for their spiritual food.

"It is exactly twenty years to-night since I began this meeting in Mains," the Rabbi explained to Carmichael, "and I have had great pleasure in it and some profit. My subject has been the Epistle to the Romans, and by the goodness of G.o.d we are approaching the last chapters. The salutations will take about a year or so; Rufus, chosen in the Lord, will need careful treatment; and then I thought, if I were spared, of giving another year to a brief review of the leading points of doctrine; eh?"

Carmichael indicated that the family at Mains would almost expect something of the sort, and inquired whether there might not be a few pa.s.sages requiring separate treatment at fuller length than was possible in this hurried commentary.

"Quite so, John, quite so; no one is more bitterly conscious of the defects of this exposition than myself--meagre and superficial to a degree, both in the patristic references and the experimental application; but we are frail creatures, John, and it is doubtful whether the exposition of any book should extend unto a generation. It has always caused me regret that Mains--I mean the father of the present tenant--departed before we had come to the comfort of the eighth chapter."

The Rabbi's mind was much affected by this thought, and twice in the kitchen his eye wandered to the chair where his friend had sat, with his wife beside him. From Priscilla and Aquila he was led into the question of hospitality, on which he spoke afterwards till they came to the Manse, where he stationed Carmichael on the doorstep till he secured a light.

"There is a parcel of books on the floor, partially opened, and the way of pa.s.sing is narrow and somewhat dangerous in the darkness."

CHAPTER XII.

KILBOGIE MANSE.

Ministers there were in the great strath so orderly that they kept their sealing-wax in one drawer and their string in another, while their sermons were arranged under the books of the Bible, and tied with green silk. Dr. Dowbiggin, though a dull man and of a heavy carriage, could find in an instant the original draft of a motion on instrumental music he made in the Presbytery of Muirtown in the year '59, and could also give the exact page in the blue-books for every word he had uttered in the famous case when he showed that the use of a harmonium to train MacWheep's choir was a return to the bondage of Old Testament wors.h.i.+p. His collection of pamphlets was supposed to be unique, and was a terror to controversialists, no man knowing when a rash utterance on the bottomless mystery of "spiritual independence" might not be produced from the Doctor's coat-tail pocket. He retired to rest at 10.15, and rose at six, settling the subject of his next sermon on Sabbath evening, and finis.h.i.+ng the first head before breakfast on Monday morning. He had three hats--one for funerals, one for marriages, one for ordinary occasions--and has returned from the Presbytery door to brush his coat. Morning prayers in Dr. Dowbiggin's house were at 8.05, and the wrath of the Doctor was so dangerous that one probationer staying at the manse, and not quite independent of influence, did not venture to undress, but s.n.a.t.c.hed a fearful doze sitting upright on a cane-bottomed chair, lest he should not be in at the psalm. Young ministers of untidy habits regarded Dr. Dowbiggin's study with despair, and did not recover their spirits till they were out of Muirtown. Once only did this eminent man visit the manse of Kilbogie, and in favourable moments after dinner he would give his choicer experiences.

"It is my invariable custom to examine the bed to see that everything is in order, and any one sleeping in Kilbogie Manse will find the good of such a precaution. I trust that I am not a luxurious person--it would ill become one who came out in '43--but I have certainly become accustomed to the use of sheets. When I saw there were none on the bed, I declined to sleep without them, and I indicated my mind very distinctly on the condition of the manse.

"Would you believe it?" the Doctor used to go on. "Saunderson explained, as if it were a usual occurrence, that he had given away all the spare linen in his house to a girl that had to marry in . . .

urgent circ.u.mstances, and had forgotten to get more. And what do you think did he offer as a subst.i.tute for sheets?" No one could even imagine what might not occur to the mind of Saunderson.

"Towels, as I am an honourable man; a collection of towels, as he put it, 'skilfully attached together, might make a pleasant covering.'

That is the first and last time I ever slept in the Free Church Manse of Kilbogie. As regards Saunderson's study, I will guarantee that the like of it cannot be found within Scotland," and at the very thought of it that exact and methodical ecclesiastic realised the limitations of language.

His boys boasted of the Rabbi's study as something that touched genius in its magnificent disorderliness, and Carmichael was so proud of it that he took me to see it as to a shrine. One whiff of its atmosphere as you entered the door gave an appet.i.te and raised the highest expectations. For any bookman can estimate a library by scent--if an expert he could even write out a catalogue of the books and sketch the appearance of the owner. Heavy odour of polished mahogany, Brussels carpets, damask curtains and tablecloths; then the books are kept within gla.s.s, consist of sets of standard works in half calf, and the owner will give you their cost wholesale to a farthing. Faint fragrance of delicate flowers, and Russia leather, with a hint of cigarettes; prepare yourself for a marvellous wall-paper, etchings, bits of oak, limited editions, and a man in a velvet coat. Smell of paste and cloth binding and general newness means yesterday's books and a man racing through novels with a paper knife. Those are only book-rooms by courtesy, and never can satisfy any one who has breathed the sacred air. It is a rich and strong spirit, not only filling the room, but pouring out from the door and possessing the hall, redeeming an opposite dining-room from grossness, and a more distant drawing-room from frivolity, and even lending a goodly flavour to bedrooms on upper floors. It is distilled from curious old duodecimos packed on high shelves out of sight, and blows over folios, with large clasps, that once stood in monastery libraries, and gathers a subtle sweetness from parchments that were illuminated in ancient scriptoriums, that are now gra.s.s grown, and is fortified with good old musty calf. The wind was from the right quarter on the first day I visited Kilbogie Manse, and as we went up the garden walk the Rabbi's library already bade us welcome, and a.s.sured us of our reward for a ten miles' walk.