“If there be one word I detest, it is 'concessions'; they are ruinous, both in the Civil Service and in the Church; and it just comes to this, Fiscal: if you yield an inch, you must yield a yard. Nothing will preserve order save resistance from the beginning, obsta principiis, yes, obsta principiis..”
The Fiscal recognised the expression on the Collector's face, and knew that it was useless to continue the subject, and so his labour was also in vain.
It only now remained that the minister should try his hand upon this inflexible man, and one of the urgent duties of his pastoral office hindered him until the evening before the meeting. During the last few days Rutherford had been trying to get the key to this type of character, and had been touched by the Collector's loneliness. Without wife or child, engaged in routine year by year, moving in a narrow set of officials or ecclesiastics, he had withered and contracted till he had become a mere pedant. People spoke of his narrowness and obstinacy. They were angry with him, and would not be sorry to teach him a lesson. The minister's heart was full of pity and charity; and, so optimistic is youth, he believed that there must be springs of emotion and romance in the old man; but this faith he did not mention to the Bailie or the Fiscal, considering, with some reason, that they would put it down as a foolish dream, and be inwardly much amused. As he stood before the Collector's residence, as it was called in the Muirtown Advertiser, his pity deepened, and he seemed to be confirmed in his compassion. The Collector did not live in rooms or in a small “house as did other bachelors, for this would be unworthy of his position, and a reflection on the State; but he must needs live in a house on the North Meadow. The large drawing-room lay unused and empty, since no ladies came to the house; and of the bedrooms only three were furnished—one for his servants, one for himself, and another a guest-room, which was never occupied save by some Government official from London on inspection, or a minister attending the Presbytery. The Collector was eager to secure Rabbi Saunderson, but that learned man, of absent mind, was apt to forget that he had been invited. The dining-room was a bare, sombre room, where the Collector took his meals in solitary state and entertained half a dozen men to simple but well-cooked dinners, after which the tablecloth was removed from the polished dark mahogany, and the sound old port coasted round in silver slides. As the minister entered the dimly lit lobby everything seemed to him significant and eloquent: the middle-aged housekeeper with her air of severe propriety; the hat-stand, with no careless, unkempt exuberance of undress hats, shooting caps country sticks, but with two silk hats only—one for good weather and Sundays, one for bad and funerals; a bamboo cane, with an ivory and silver head of straight and unadorned pattern; and two coats—one for cold, one for milder temperature. His sitting-room, where he spent his unofficial time, seemed to the minister that evening the very embodiment of the man—a physical shape, as it were, revealing his character. There was no comfortable disorder of papers, books, pipes, which sets one at ease in some rooms. Everything had its place; and the daily paper, after having been read, was sent down to the kitchen, unless there was some news of an unedifying description, in which case it was burned. Instead of a couch whereon one could lie and meditate after dinner on the problems of existence, there were two straight-backed armchairs, one on each side of the fireplace. The bookcase had glass doors, and one could read the titles on one shelf: The Incidence of the Income Tax, The Abolition of the Malt Duty, Rules for the Collectors of H.M. Inland Revenue, Practice of the Free Church of Scotland, Abstract of the Acts of Assembly 1700 to 1840, and The Elders Manual. The Collector was reading another book of the same genial and exhilarating class, and the minister noticed its contents with some dismay, The Authority of Kirk Sessions; but the Collector was quite cordial (for him).
“I am much pleased to see you, Mr. Rutherford, and should be gratified if your onerous duties allowed you to call more frequently; but I never forget that while our hours in the service of the Queen are, as a rule, fixed, yours, in a higher service, have no limit Do not, I pray you, sit there; that is in the draught between the door and the fire: here, if you will be so good, opposite me. Well, sir, how is your work prospering?”
The minister explained that he had intended to call sooner, but had been occupied with various cases of sickness, one of which had touched him closely. The people were not in the Collector's district; but perhaps he might have noticed them: they sat before him in church.
“Do you refer to a couple who have come quite recently, within a year, and who, as I judge, are newly married; they are interesting young people, it seemed to me, and most attentive, as I can testify to their religious duties.”
“Yes, the same. They were engaged for many years—a love affair of childhood, and they have been married less than eight months. They have a beautiful little home at Craigie, and they simply lived one for another.”
“I can believe that, Mr. Rutherford; for I may mention that on one occasion, when you touched on love in appropriate and... somewhat moving terms, I happened to notice, without espionage I trust, that the wife slipped her hand into her husband's, and so they sat until the close of the sermon. Has trouble come to them?” and the Collector looked anxiously at the minister over his spectacles.
“Very dangerous and sudden trouble, I am sorry to say. Last Monday Mrs. Fortune was prematurely confined, and I... don't understand about these things; but the doctor considered it a very bad case.”
“There had been complications, I fear; that sometimes happens, and, I don't know why, often with those whose lives are most precious. How is she? I earnestly hope that she... that he has not lost his bride.” And Rutherford was struck by the anxiety and sadness in the Collector's voice.