Carmichael had taken his turn.
His usual fortune befell him that day in Muirtown Station, for two retrievers, worming their way through the luggage, reached him, and made known their wants.
"Thirsty? I believe you. All the way from England, and heat enough to roast you alive. I 've got no dish, else I 'd soon get water.
"Inverness? Poor chaps, that's too far to go with your tongues like a lime-kiln. Down, good dogs; I 'll be back in a minute."
You can have no idea, unless you have tried it, how much water a soft clerical hat can hold—if you turn up the edges and bash down the inside with your fist, and fill the space to the brim. But it is difficult to convey such a vessel with undiminished content through a crowd, and altogether impossible to lift one's eyes. Carmichael was therefore quite unconscious that two new-comers to the shelter were watching him with keen delight as he came in bareheaded, flushed, triumphant—amid howls of welcome—and knelt down to hold the cup till—drinking time about in strict honour—the retrievers had reached the maker's name.
"Do you think they would like a biscuit?" said a clear, sweet, low voice, with an accent of pride and just a flavour of amusement in its tone. Carmichael rose in much embarrassment, and was quite confounded.
They were standing together—father and daughter, evidently—and there was no manner of doubt about him. A spare man, without an ounce of superfluous flesh, straight as a rod, and having an air of command, with keen grey eyes, close-cropped hair turning white, a clean-shaven face except where a heavy moustache covered a firm-set mouth—one recognised in him a retired army man of rank, a colonel at least, it might be a general; and the bronze on his face suggested long Indian service. But he might have been dressed in Rob Roy tartan, or been a naval officer in full uniform, for all Carmichael knew. A hundred thousand faces pass before your eyes and are forgotten, mere physical impressions; you see one, and it is in your heart for ever, as you saw it the first time. Wavy black hair, a low, straight forehead, hazel eyes with long eyelashes, a perfectly-shaped Grecian nose, a strong mouth, whose upper lip had a curve of softness, a clear-cut chin with one dimple, small ears set high in the head, and a rich creamy complexion—that was what flashed upon Carmichael as he turned from the retrievers. He was a man so unobservant of women that he could not have described a woman's dress to save his life or any other person's; and now that he is married—he is a middle-aged man now and threatened with stoutness—it is his wife's reproach that he does not know when she wears her new spring bonnet for the first time. Yet he took in this young woman's dress, from the smart hat, with a white bird's wing on the side, and the close-fitting tailor made jacket, to the small, well-gloved hand in dogskin, the grey tweed skirt, and one shoe, with a tip on it, that peeped out below her frock. Critics might have hinted that her shoulders were too square, and that her figure wanted somewhat in softness of outline; but it seemed to Carmichael that he had never seen so winsome or high-bred a woman; and so it has also seemed to many who have gone farther afield in the world than the young minister of Drumtochty.
Carmichael was at that age when a man prides himself on dressing and thinking as he pleases, and had quite scandalised a Muirtown elder—a stout gentleman, who had come out in '43, and could with difficulty be weaned from Dr. Chalmers—by making his appearance on the preceding evening in amazing tweeds and a grey flannel shirt. He explained casually that for a fifteen-mile walk flannels were absolutely necessary, and that he was rather pleased to find that he had come from door to door in four hours and two minutes exactly. His host was at a loss for words, because he was comparing this unconventional youth with the fathers, who wore large white stocks and ambled along at about two and a half miles an hour, clearing their throats also in a very impressive way, and seasoning the principles of the Free Kirk with snuff of an excellent fragrance. It was hard even for the most generous charity to identify the spirit of the Disruption in such a figure, and the good elder grew so proper and so didactic that Carmichael went from bad to worse.
"Well, you would find the congregation in excellent order. The Professor was a most painstaking man, though retiring in disposition, and his sermons were thoroughly solid and edifying. They were possibly just a little above the heads of Drumtochty, but I always enjoyed Mr. Cunningham myself," nodding his head as one who understood all mysteries.
"Did you ever happen to hear the advice Jamie Soutar gave the deputation from Muirtown when they came up to see whether Cunningham would be fit for the North Kirk, where two Bailies stand at the plate every day, and the Provost did not think himself good enough to be an elder?" for Carmichael was full of wickedness that day, and earning a judgment.
His host indicated that the deputation had given in a very full and satisfactory report—he was, in fact, on the Session of the North himself—but that no reference had been made to Jamie.
"Well, you must know," and Carmichael laid himself out for narration, "the people were harassed with raids from the Lowlands during Cunningham's time, and did their best in self-defence. Spying makes men cunning, and it was wonderful how many subterfuges the deputations used to practise. They would walk from Kildrummie as if they were staying in the district, and one retired tradesman talked about the crops as if he was a farmer, but it was a pity that he did n't know the difference between the cereals.
"'Yon man that wes up aifter yir minister, Elspeth,' Hillocks said to Mrs. Macfadyen, 'hesna hed muckle money spent on his eddication. "A graund field o' barley," he says, and as sure as a 'm stannin' here, it wes the haugh field o' aits.'
"'He 's frae Glaisgie,' was all Elspeth answered, 'and by next Friday we 'll hae his name an' kirk. He said he wes up for a walk an' juist dropped in, the wratch.'
"Some drove from Muirtown, giving out that they were English tourists, speaking with a fine East Coast accent, and were rebuked by Lachlan Campbell for breaking the Sabbath. Your men put up their trap at the last farm in Netheraird—which always has grudged Drumtochty its ministers and borne their removal with resignation—and came up in pairs, who pretended they did not know one another.
"Jamie was hearing the Professor's last lecture on Justification, and our people asked him to take charge of the strangers. He found out the town from their hats, and escorted them to the boundaries of the parish, assisting their confidences till one of your men—I think it was the Provost—admitted that it had taken them all their time to follow the sermon.
"'A 'm astonished at ye,' said Jamie, for the Netheraird man let it out; 'yon wes a sermon for young fouk, juist milk, ye ken, tae the ordinar' discoorses. Surely,' as if the thought had just struck him, 'ye werena thinkin' o' callin' Maister Cunningham tae Muirtown.
"'Edinboorgh, noo; that micht dae gin the feck o' the members be professors, but Muirtown wud be clean havers. There's times when the Drumtochty fouk themsels canna understand the cratur, he 's that deep. As for Muirtown'—here Jamie allowed himself a brief rest of enjoyment; 'but ye've hed a fine drive, tae say naethin' o' the traivel.'"
Then, having begun, Carmichael retailed so many of Jamie's most wicked sayings, and so exalted the Glen as a place "where you can go up one side and down the other with your dogs, and every second man you meet will give you something to remember," that the city dignitary doubted afterwards to his wife "whether this young man was … quite what we have been accustomed to in a Free Church minister." Carmichael ought to have had repentances for shocking a worthy man, but instead thereof laughed in his room and slept soundly, not knowing that he would be humbled in the dust by mid-day to-morrow.
It seemed to him on the platform as if an hour passed while he, who had played with a city father, stood, clothed with shame, before this commanding young woman. Had she ever looked upon a more abject wretch? and Carmichael photographed himself with merciless accuracy, from his hair that he had not thrown back to an impress of dust which one knee had taken from the platform, and he registered a resolution that he would never be again boastfully indifferent to the loss of a button on his coat. She stooped and fed the dogs, who did her homage, and he marked that her profile was even finer—more delicate, more perfect, more bewitching—than her front face, but he still stood holding his shapeless hat in his hand, and for the first time in his life had no words to say.
"They are very polite dogs," and Miss Carnegie gave Carmichael one more chance; "they make as much of a biscuit as if it were a feast; but I do think dogs have such excellent manners, they are always so un-self-conscious."
"I wish I were a dog," said Carmichael, with much solemnity, and afterwards was filled with thankfulness that the baggage behind gave way at that moment, and that an exasperated porter was able to express his mind freely.
"Dinna try tae lift that box for ony sake, man. Sall, ye 're no' feared," as Carmichael, thirsting for action, swung it up unaided; and then, catching sight of the merest wisp of white, "A' didna see ye were a minister, an' the word cam oot sudden."
"You would find it a help to say Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Durham," and with a smile to Carmichael, still bareheaded and now redder than ever, Miss Carnegie went along the platform to see the Hielant train depart. It was worth waiting to watch the two minutes' scrimmage, and to hear the great man say, as he took off his cap with deliberation and wiped his brow, "That's anither year ower; some o' you lads see tae that Dunleith train." There was a day when Carmichael would have enjoyed the scene to the full, but now he had eyes for nothing but that tall, slim figure and the white bird's wing.
When they disappeared into the Dunleith train, Carmichael had a wild idea of entering the same compartment, and in the end had to be pushed into the last second by the guard, who knew most of his regular people and every one of the Drumtochty men. He was so much engaged with his own thoughts that he gave two English tourists to understand that Lord Kilspindie's castle, standing amid its woods on the bank of the Tay, was a recently erected dye work, and that as the train turned off the North trunk line for Dunleith they might at any moment enter the pass of Killiecrankie.
CHAPTER II.
PEACE.
he last stage now, Kit; in less than two hours we'll see Tochty woods. The very thought makes me a boy again, and it seems yesterday that I kissed your mother on the door-step of the old lodge and went off to the Crimean war.
"That's Muirtown Castle over there in the wood—a grand place in its way, but nothing to our home, lassie. Kilspindie—he was Viscount Hay then—joined me at Muirtown, and we fought through the weary winter. He left the army after the war, with lots of honour. A good fellow was Hay, both in the trenches and the messroom.
"I 've never seen him since, and I dare say he 's forgotten a battered old Indian. Besides, he's the big swell in this district, and I 'm only a poor Hielant laird, with a wood and a tumble-down house and a couple of farms."
"You are also a shameless hypocrite and deceiver, for you believe that the Carnegies are as old as the Hays, and you know that, though you have only two farms, you have twelve medals and seven wounds. What does money matter? it simply makes people vulgar."
"Nonsense, lassie; if a Carnegie runs down money, it's because he has got none and wishes he had. If you and I had only a few hundreds a year over the half-pay to rattle in our pockets, we should have lots of little pleasures, and you might have lived in England, with all sorts of variety and comfort, instead of wandering about India with a gang of stupid old chaps who have been so busy fighting that they never had time to read a book."
"You mean like yourself, dad, and V. C. and Colonel Kinloch? Where could a girl have found finer company than with my Knights of King Arthur? And do you dare to insinuate that I could have been content away from the regiment, that made me their daughter after mother died, and the army?
"Pleasure!" and Kate's cheek flushed. "I 've had it since I was a little tot and could remember anything—the bugles sounding reveille in the clear air, and the sergeants drilling the new drafts in the morning, and the regiment coming out with the band before and you at its head, and hearing 'God save the Queen' at a review, and seeing the companies passing like one man before the General.
"Don't you think that's better than tea-drinking, and gossiping, and sewing meetings, and going for walks in some stupid little hole of a country town? Oh, you wicked, aggravating dad. Now, what more will money do?"
"Well," said the General, with much gravity, "if you were even a moderate heiress there is no saying but that we might pick up a presentable husband for you among the lairds. As it is, I fancy a country minister is all you could expect.
"Don't … my ears will come off some day; one was loosened by a cut in the Mutiny. No, I 'll never do the like again. But some day you will marry, all the same," and Kate's father rubbed his ears.
"No, I 'm not going to leave you, for nobody else could ever make a curry to please; and if I do, it will not be a Scotch minister—horrid, bigoted wretches, V. C. says. Am I like a minister's wife, to address mothers' meetings and write out sermons? By the way, is there a kirk at Drumtochty, or will you read prayers to Janet and Donald and me?"
"When I was a lad there was just one minister in Drumtochty, Mr. Davidson, a splendid specimen of the old school, who, on great occasions, wore gaiters and a frill with a diamond in the centre; he carried a gold-headed stick, and took snuff out of a presentation box.
"His son Sandie was my age to a year, and many a ploy we had together; there was the jackdaw's nest in the ivy on the old tower we harried together," and the General could only indicate the delightful risk of the exploit. "My father and the minister were pacing the avenue at the time, and caught sight of us against the sky. 'It's your rascal and mine, Laird,' we heard the minister say, and they waited till we got down, and then each did his duty by his own for trying to break his neck; but they were secretly proud of the exploit, for I caught my father showing old Lord Kilspindie the spot, and next time Hay was up he tried to reach the place, and stuck where the wall hangs over. I 'll point out the hole this evening; you can see it from the other side of the den quite plain."
