Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers

by Ian Maclaren

"To put flowers on his grave."

"May I have as fair hands to decorate my grave, Miss Catherine Carnegie," and the Doctor bowed gallantly; "but of one thing I am sure, I have done nothing to deserve it. Saunderson was a scholar of the ancient kind, and a very fine spirit."

"Don't you think," said Kate, "that he was … like À Kempis, I mean, and George Herbert, a kind of … saint?"

"Altogether one, I should say. I don't think he would have known port wine from sherry, or an entrée from a mutton chop; beside a man like that what worldly fellows you and I are, Jack, and mine is the greater shame."

"I'll have no comparisons, Padre"—Kate was a little puzzled by the tone in the Doctor's voice; "he was so good that I loved him; but there are some points in the General and you, quite nice points, and for the sake of them you shall have afternoon tea in my room," where the Doctor and the General fell on former days and were wonderful company.

"It's not really about the road I wish to talk to you," and the Doctor closed the door of the General's den, "but about … a terrible calamity that has befallen you and me, Jack, and I am to blame."

"What is it?" and Carnegie sat erect; "does it touch our name or … Kate?"

"Neither, thank God," said Davidson.

"Then it cannot be so very bad. Let us have it at once," and the General lighted a cheroot.

"Our bank has failed, and we shall have to give up everything to pay the debt, and … Jack, it was I advised you to buy the shares." The Doctor rose and went to the window.

"For God's sake don't do that, Sandie. Why, man, you gave me the best advice you knew, and there 's an end of it. It's the fortune of war, and we must take it without whining. I know whom you are thinking about, and I am … a bit sorry for Kate, for she ought to have lots of things—more dresses and trinkets, you know. But Davidson, she 'll be the bravest of the three."

"You are right there, Jack. Kate is of the true grit, but … Tochty Lodge."

"Yes, it will hit us pretty hard to see the old place sold, if it comes to that, when I hoped to end my days here … but, man, it's our fate. Bit by bit we 've lost Drumtochty, till there were just the woods and the two farms left, and soon we 'll be out of the place—nothing left but our graves.

"Sandie, this is bad form, and … you 'll not hear this talk again; we 'll get a billet somewhere, and wherever it be, there 'll be a bed and a crust for you, old man;" and at the door the two held one another's hands for a second; that was all.

"So this was what you two conspirators were talking about downstairs, as if I could not be trusted. Did you think that I would faint, or perhaps weep? The padre deserves a good scolding, and as for you—" Then Kate went over and cast an arm round her father's neck, whose face was quivering.

"It is rather a disappointment to leave the Lodge when we were getting it to our mind; but we 'll have a jolly little home somewhere, and I 'll get a chance of earning something. Dancing now—I think that I might be able to teach some girls how to waltz. Then my French is really intelligible, and most colloquial; besides revolver shooting. Dad, we are on our way to a fortune, and at the worst you 'll have your curry and cheroots, and I 'll have a well-fitting dress. Voilà, mon père."

When the two Drumtochty men arrived next forenoon at the hall in Glasgow, where the shareholders had been summoned to receive particulars of their ruin, the dreary place was filled with a crowd representative of every class in the community except the highest, whose wealth is in land, and the lowest, whose possessions are on their backs. There were city merchants, who could not conceal their chagrin that they had been befooled; countrymen, who seemed utterly dazed, as if the course of the seasons had been reversed; prosperous tradesmen, who were aggressive in appearance and wanted to take it out of somebody; widows, who could hardly restrain their tears, seeing before them nothing but starvation; clergymen, who were thinking of their boys taken from school and college. For a while the victims were silent, and watched with hungry eyes the platform door, and there was an eager rustle when some clerk came out and laid a bundle of papers on the table. This incident seemed to excite the meeting and set tongues loose. People began to talk to their neighbours explaining how they came to be connected with the bank, as if this were now a crime. One had inherited the shares and had never had resolution to sell them; another had been deceived by a friend and bought them; a third had taken over two shares for a bad debt. A minister thought that he must have been summoned by mistake, for he was simply a trustee on an estate which had shares, but he was plainly nervous about his position. An Ayrshire Bailie had only had his shares for six months, and he put it, to his circle, with municipal eloquence, whether he could be held responsible for frauds of years' standing. No one argued with him, and indeed you might say anything you pleased, for each was so much taken up with his own case that he only listened to you that he might establish a claim in turn on your attention. Here and there a noisy and confident personage got a larger audience by professing to have private information. A second-rate stockbroker assured quite a congregation that the assets of the bank included an estate in Australia, which would more than pay the whole debt, and advised them to see that it was not flung away; and a Government pensioner mentioned casually in his neighbourhood, on the authority of one of the managers, that there was not that day a solvent bank in Scotland. The different conversations rise to a babel, various speakers enforce their views on the floor with umbrellas, one enthusiast exhorts his brother unfortunates from a chair, when suddenly there is a hush, and then in a painful silence the shareholders hang on the lips of the accountant, from whom they learn that things could not be worse, that the richest shareholder may be ruined, and that ordinary people will lose their last penny.

Speech again breaks forth, but now it is despairing, fierce, vindictive. One speaker storms against Government which allows public institutions to defraud the public, and refers to himself as the widow and orphan, and another assails the directorate with bitter invective as liars and thieves, and insists on knowing whether they are to be punished. The game having now been unearthed, the pack follow in full cry. The tradesman tells with much gusto how one director asked the detectives for leave to have family prayers before he was removed, and then declares his conviction that when a man takes to praying you had better look after your watch. Ayrshire wished to inform the accountant and the authorities that the directors had conveyed to their wives and friends enormous sums which ought to be seized without delay. The air grew thick with upbraidings, complaints, cries for vengeance, till the place reeked with sordid passions. Through all this ignoble storm the Drumtochty men sat silent, amazed, disgusted, till at last the Doctor rose, and such authority was in his very appearance that with his first words he obtained a hearing.

"Mr. Accountant," he said, "and gentlemen, it appears to me as if under a natural provocation and suffering we are in danger of forgetting our due dignity and self-respect. We have been, as is supposed, the subjects of fraud on the part of those whom we trusted; that is a matter which the law will decide, and, if necessary, punish. If we have been betrayed, then the directors are in worse case than the shareholders, for we are not disgraced. The duty before us is plain, and must be discharged to our utmost ability. It is to go home and gather together our last penny for the payment of our debts, in order that at any rate those who have trusted us may not be disappointed. Gentlemen, it is evident that we have lost our means; let us show to Scotland that there is something which cannot be taken from us by any fraud, and that we have retained our courage and our honour."

It was the General who led the applause so that the roof of the hall rang, but it is just to Ayrshire and the rest to say that they came to themselves—all men of the old Scottish breed—and followed close after with a mighty shout.

The sound of that speech went through Scotland and awoke the spirit of honest men in many places, so that the Doctor, travelling next day to Muirtown, third class, with the General, and wedged in among a set of cattle dealers, was so abashed by their remarks as they read the Caledonian that the General let out the secret.

"Yir hand, sir," said the chief among them, a mighty man at the Falkirk Tryst; "gin it bena a leeberty, ilka ane o's hes a sair fecht tae keep straicht in oor wy o' business, but ye 've gien 's a lift the day," and so they must needs all have a grip of the Doctor's hand, who took snuff with prodigality, while the General complained of the smoke from the engine.

Nor were their trials over, for on Muirtown platform—it being Friday—all kinds of Perthshire men were gathered, and were so proud of our Doctor that before he got shelter in the Dunleith train his hand was sore, and the men that grasped it were of all kinds, from Lord Kilspindie—who, having missed him at the Manse, had come to catch him at the station—"Best sermon you ever preached, Davidson,"—to an Athole farmer—"I am an elder in the Free Kirk, but it iss this man that will be honouring you."

It was a fine instance of the unfailing tact of Peter Bruce that, seeing the carriage out of which the two came, and taking in the situation, he made no offer of the first class, but straightway dusted out a third with his handkerchief, and escorted them to it cap in hand. Drumtochty restrained itself with an effort in foreign parts—for Kildrummie was exceptionally strong at the Junction—but it waited at the terminus till the outer world had gone up the road. Then their own folk took the two in hand, and these were the guard of honour who escorted the Minister and the General to where our Kate was waiting with the dog-cart, each carrying some morsel of luggage—Drumsheugh, Burnbrae, Hillocks, Netherton, Jamie Soutar, and Archie Moncur. Kate drove gloriously through Kildrummie as if they had come from a triumph, and let it be said to the credit of that despised town, that, the news having come, every hat was lifted, but that which lasted till they got home, and till long afterwards, was the handshake of the Drumtochty men.

CHAPTER XXIII.

MARGET HOWE'S CONFESSIONAL.

hen the General and Kate were loitering over breakfast the morning after the ovation, they heard the sound of a horse's feet on the gravel, and Donald came in with more his usual importance.

"It iss a messenger from Muirtown Castle, and he iss waiting to know whether there will be any answer." And Donald put one letter before the father and another before the daughter, both showing the Hay crest. Kate's face whitened as she recognised the handwriting on her envelope, and she went over to the window seat of a turret in the corner of the room, while the General opened his letter, standing on a tiger-skin, with his back to the fireplace in the great hall. This is what he read:

MY DEAR CARNEGIE,—When men have fought together in the trenches before Sebastopol, as their ancestors have ridden side by side with Prince Charlie, I hope you will agree with me they need not stand on ceremony. If I seem guilty of any indiscretion in what I am going to say, then you will pardon me for "Auld Lang Syne."

You have one daughter and I have one son, and so I do not need to tell you that he is very dear to me, and that I have often thought of his marriage, on which not only his own happiness so much depends, but also the future of our house and name. Very likely you have had some such thoughts about Kate, with this difference, that you would rather keep so winsome a girl with you, while I want even so good a son as Hay to be married whenever he can meet with one whom he loves, and who is worthy of him.

Hay never gave me an hour's anxiety, and has no entanglements of any kind, but on the subject of marriage I could make no impression. "Time enough," he would say, or "The other person has not turned up," and I was getting uneasy, for you and I are not so young as once we were. You may fancy my satisfaction, therefore, when George came down from Drumtochty last August and told me he had found the "other person," and that she was my old friend Jack Carnegie's daughter. Of course I urged him to make sure of himself, but now he has had ample opportunities during your two visits, and he is quite determined that his wife is to be Kate or nobody.

It goes without saying that the Countess and I heartily approve Hay's choice and are charmed with Kate, who is as bonnie as she is high-spirited. She sustains the old traditions of her family, who were ever strong and true, and she has a clever tongue, which neither you nor I have, Jack, nor Hay either, good fellow though he be, and that is not a bad thing for a woman nowadays. They would make a handsome pair, as they ought, with such good-looking fathers, eh?

Well, I am coming to my point, for in those circumstances I want your help. What Miss Carnegie thinks of Hay we don't know, and unless I 'm much mistaken she will decide for herself, but is it too much to ask you—if you can—to say a word for him? You are quite right to think that no man is worthy of Kate, but she is bound to marry some day—I can't conceive how you have kept her so long—and I am certain Hay will make a good husband, and he is simply devoted to her. If she refuses him, I am afraid he will not marry, and then—well, grant I'm selfish, but it would be a calamity to us.

Don't you think that it looks like an arrangement of Providence to unite two families that have shared common dangers and common faith in the past, and to establish a Carnegie once more as lady of Drumtochty? Now that is all, and it's a long screed, but the matter lies near my heart, and we shall wait the answers from you both with anxiety.

Yours faithfully,
KILSPINDIE.

Kate's letter was much shorter, and was written in big schoolboy hand with great care.

DEAR MISS CARNEGIE,—They say that a woman always knows when a man loves her, and if so you will not be astonished at this letter. From that day I saw you in Drumtochty Kirk I have loved you, and every week I love you more. My mother is the only other woman I have ever cared for, and that is different. Will you be my wife? I often wanted to ask you when you were with us in November and last month, but my heart failed me. Can you love me a little, enough to say yes? I am not clever, and I am afraid I shall never do anything to make you proud of me, but you will have all my heart, and I 'll do my best to make you happy.

I am, yours very sincerely,
HAY.

Carnegie could see Kate's face from his place, who was looking out of the window with a kindly expression, and her father, who was of a simple mind, and knew little of women, was encouraged by such visible friendliness. He was about to go over, when her face changed. She dropped the letter on the seat, and became very thoughtful, knitting her brows and resting her chin on her hand. In a little, something stung her—like a person recalling an injury—and she flushed with anger, drumming with her fingers on the sill of the window. Then anger gave place to sadness, as if she had resolved to do something that was inevitable, but less than the best. Kate glanced in her father's direction, and read Lord Hay's letter again; then she seemed to have made up her mind.

"Father," as she joined him on the skin beneath those loyal Carnegies on the wall, "there is Lord Hay's letter, and he is a … worthy gentleman. Perhaps I did not give him so much encouragement as he took, but that does not matter. This is a … serious decision, and ought not to be made on the spur of the moment. Will you let the messenger go with a note to say that an answer will be sent on Monday? You might write to Lord Kilspindie."

She was still standing in the place when he returned, and had been studying the proud, determined face of Black John's mother, who had not spared her only son for the good cause.

"Did you ever hear of any Carnegie, dad, who married beneath her, or … loved one on the other side?"

"Never," said her father. "Our women all married into loyal families of their own rank, which is best for comfort; but why do you ask? Hay is a …"

"Yes, I know; it was only … curiosity made me ask, and I suppose some of our women must have made sacrifices for their … cause?"

"Far more than the men ever did, for, see you, a man is just shot, and all is over, and before he falls he 's had some good fighting, but his wife suffers all her days, when he is living and when he is dead. Yet our women were the first to send their men to the field. Heavens! what women do suffer—they ought to have their reward."

"They have," said Kate, with emphasis, "if they help those whom they love.… Father, would you be quite satisfied with Lord Hay for a son-in-law, and … would you let us live with you here as much as we could?"

"Kate, if you are to marry—and I knew it must come some day—I have not seen a more honest man; but you are forgetting that Tochty Lodge will soon be out of our hands; I 'll have to get a bungalow somewhere, not too far away from Muirtown, I hope."

"If I marry Lord Hay, Tochty Lodge will not be sold, and you will never be disturbed, dad. We shall not be separated more than we can help," and Kate caressed the General.

"Do you mean, lassie," said the General, with a sudden suspicion, lilting her face till he saw her eyes, "that you are going to accept Hay in order to keep the old home? You must not do this, for it would not … don't you see that I … could not accept this at your hands?"

"You cannot prevent your daughter marrying Lord Hay if your daughter so decides, but as yet she is in doubt, very great doubt, and so I am going for a long walk on the big moor, and you … well, why not take lunch with the Padre at the manse?"

"Hay is a straight young fellow, and Kate would supply what he wants—a dash of go, you know"—so the General was summing up the situation to his old friend; "but my girl is not to marry Hay or any other man for my sake, and that is what she thinks of doing."

"Did it ever occur to you, Carnegie, that Kate had a … well, kindly feeling for any other man?"

"Plenty of fellows tried their luck: first subalterns, then aides-de-camp, and at last commissioners; it was no easy affair to be her father," and Carnegie gave Davidson a comic look. "I used to scold her, but upon my word I don't know she was to blame, and I am certain she did not care for one of them; in fact, she laughed at them all till—well, in fact, I had to interfere."

"And since you came to the Lodge"—the Doctor spoke with meaning—"besides Lord Hay?"

"Why, there is just yourself"—the Doctor nodded with much appreciation—"and that Free Kirkman.… Davidson, do you mean that—oh, nonsense, man; she was quite angry one day when I suggested a parson. Kate has always said that was the last man she would marry."

"That is an evidence she will."

The General stared at the oracle, and went on:

"She has made his life miserable at the Lodge with her tongue; she delighted in teasing him. Your idea is quite absurd."

"Carnegie, did you ever hear the classical couplet—

"Scarting and biting
Mak Scots fouk's 'ooing;"

and although I admit the description applies in the first instance to milkmaids, yet there is a fair share of national character in the Carnegies."

"Do you really think that Kate is in … has, well, a, eh, tenderness to Carmichael? it would never have occurred to me."

"How would you look on Carmichael as a suitor?"

"Well, if Kate is to marry—and mind you I always prepared myself for that—I would of course prefer Hay, not because he is a lord, or rich, or any snobbery of that kind—you know me better than that, Sandie—but because he 's … you know … belongs to our own set.

"Don't you think there is something in that?" and the General tried to explain his honest mind, in which lived no unworthy or uncharitable thought. "I have not one word to say against Carmichael; he 's good-looking, and monstrous clever, and he has always made himself very agreeable, very, and the people swear by him in the Glen; but … you must understand what I mean, Davidson," and the General was in despair.

"You mean that though he 's a first-rate young fellow for a clergyman, he does not belong to your world—has a different set of friends, has different habits of living, has a different way of thinking and speaking—is, in fact, an outsider."

"That's it—just what I was 'ettling' after—lucky fellows we Scots with such words," and the General was immensely delighted to be delivered of his idea in an inoffensive form.

"It is my own belief, Carnegie—and you can laugh at me afterwards if I be wrong—that this will be the end of it, however. Yes, putting it plainly, that Kate is in love with Carmichael, as he is certainly with her; and you will have to make the best of the situation."

"You don't like the idea any more than I do, Davidson?"

"Speaking in perfect confidence and frankness, I do not. I look at the matter this way"—the Doctor stood on the hearth-rug in a judicial attitude, pulling down his waistcoat with his two hands, his legs apart, and his eye-glass on his nose—"Carmichael has been brought up among … plain, respectable people, and theological books, and church courts, and Free Kirk society, all of which is excellent, but … secluded"—the Doctor liked the word, which gave his mind without offence—"secluded. Kate is a Carnegie, was educated in France, has travelled in India, and has lived in the most exciting circumstances. She loves soldiers, war, gaiety, sport, besides many other … eh, good things, and is a … lovely girl. Love laughs at rules, but if you ask me my candid opinion, the marriage would not be … in fact, congruous. If it is to be, it must be, and God bless them both, say I, and so will everybody say; but it will be an experiment, a distinct and … interesting experiment."

"Kate is not to marry any one for my sake, to save Tochty, but I do wish she had fancied Lord Hay," said the General, ruefully.

"The Free Kirk folk in the depths of their hearts consider me a worldly old clergyman, and perhaps I am, for, Jack, I would dearly like to see our Kate Viscountess Hay, and to think that one day, when we three old fellows are gone, she would be Countess of Kilspindie." That was the first conference of the day on Kate's love affairs, and this is how it ended.

Meanwhile the young woman herself had gone up the road to the high Glen and made her way over dykes and through fields to Whinny Knowe, which she had often visited since the August Sacrament. Whinny came out from the kitchen door in corduroy trousers, much stained with soil, and grey shirt—wiping his mouth with the back of his hand after a hearty dinner—and went to the barn for his midday sleep before he went again to the sowing. Marget met her at the garden gate, dressed in her week-day clothes and fresh from a morning's churning, but ever refined and spiritual, as one whose soul is shining through the veil of common circumstances.

"It's a benison tae see ye on this bricht day, Miss Carnegie, an' ye 'll come tae the garden-seat, for the spring flooers are bloomin' bonnie and sweet the noo, an' fillin' 's a' wi' hope.

"Gin there be ony sun shinin'," as she spread a plaid, "the heat fa's here, an' save when the snow is heavy on the Glen, there 's aye some blossoms here tae mind us o' oor Father's love an' the world that isna seen."

"Marget," began Kate, not with a blush, but rather a richening of colour, "you have been awfully good to me, and have helped me in lots of ways, far more than you could dream of. Do you know you 've made me almost good at times, with just enough badness to keep me still myself, as when I flounced out from the Free Kirk."