Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers

by Ian Maclaren

The exact quality and popularity of this gift was excellently stated by the wife of a working man, who referred with enthusiasm to the edifying character of the assistant's conversation.

"Tammas misses Maister Carmichael juist terrible, for he wud come in on a forenicht an' sit, an' smoke, an' haver wi' the gude man by the 'oor. He wes the maist divertin' minister a' ever saw in the West Kirk."

It will be evident that Carmichael's visitation belonged to a different department of art from that of Dr. Davidson. He arrived without intimation by the nearest way that he could invent, clothed in a shooting jacket and a soft hat, and accompanied by at least two dogs. His coming created an instant stir, and Carmichael plunged at once into the life of the household. It is kept on fond record, and still told by the surviving remnant of his flock, that on various occasions and in the course of pastoral visitation he had turned the hay in summer, had forked the sheaves in harvest-time, had sacked the corn for market, and had driven a gude wife's churn. After which honourable toil he would eat and drink anything put before him except boiled tea, against which he once preached with power—and then would sit indefinitely with the family before the kitchen fire, telling tales of ancient history, recalling the old struggles of Scottish men, describing foreign sights, enlarging on new books, till he would remember that he had only dropped in for an hour, and that two meals must be waiting for him at the manse. His visits were understood to be quite unfinished, and he left every house pledged to return and take up things at the point where he had been obliged to break off, and so he came at last in this matter of visitation into a condition of hopeless insolvency. His adventures were innumerable and always enjoyable—falling off the two fir trees that made a bridge over our deeper burns, and being dried at the next farm-house—wandering over the moor all night and turning up at a gamekeeper's at daybreak, covered with peat and ravening with hunger—fighting his way through a snowstorm to a marriage, and digging the bridegroom out of a drift—dodging a herd of Highland cattle that thought he had come too near their calves, or driving off Drumsheugh's polled Angus bull with contumely when he was threatening Mrs. Macfadyen. If he met the bairns coming from school, the Glen rang with the foolery. When Willie Harley broke his leg, Carmichael brought his dog Jackie—I could tell things of that dog—and devised dramatic entertainments of such attraction that Jamie Soutar declared them no better than the theatre, and threatened Carmichael with a skep of honey as a mark of his indignation. As for the old women of the Glen, he got round them to that extent that they would gossip with him by the hour over past days, and Betty Macfarlane was so carried by the minister's sympathy that she brought out from hidden places some finery of her youth, and Carmichael was found by Miss Carnegie arranging a faded Paisley shawl on Betty's shoulders. And was it not this same gay Free Kirkman who trained an eleven to such perfection on a field of Drumsheugh's that they beat the second eleven of Muirtown gloriously? on which occasion Tammas Mitchell, by the keenness of his eye and the strength of his arm, made forty-four runs; and being congratulated by Drumtochty as he carried his bat, opened his mouth for the first time that day, saying, "Awa wi' ye."

Would gossip with him by the hour.

So it came to pass that notwithstanding his unholy tendency to Biblical criticism and other theological pedantry, Drumtochty loved Carmichael because he was a man; and Dr. Davidson, lighting upon him in Hillocks' garden, with the family round him full of joy, would threaten him with a prosecution for poaching under the ecclesiastical Game Laws, and end by insisting upon him coming to dinner at the manse, when he might explain his conduct. Drumtochty loved him for his very imperfections, and follows his career unto this day with undying interest, recalling his various escapades with huge delight, and declaring to strangers that even in his callow days they had discovered that Carmichael was a preacher.

Carmichael had occasional fits of order, when he repented of his desultory ways, and began afresh with much diligence, writing out the names of the congregation with full details—he once got as far as Menzies before he lost the book—mapping the parish into districts, and planning an elaborate visitation. It may have been an accident that the district he chose for experiment embraced Tochty Lodge—where the Carnegies had just settled—but it was natural that his first effort should be thorough. There were exactly ten Free Kirk families from Tochty Lodge eastwards, and some of these still speak with feeling of the attention they received, which exceeded all they had ever known before or since.

"It wesna that he sat sae lang as a 've heard o' him daein' in the heich Glen, but it wes the times he cam'," Mrs. Stirton used to expatiate, "maybe twice a week for a month. He hed a wy o' comin' through Tochty Wood—the shade helpit him tae study, he said—an' jumpin' the dyke. Sall, gin he dinna mak a roadie for himsel' through the field that year. A' wudna say," she used to add in a casual tone, "but that he micht hae gi'en a cry at the Lodge, but he cudna dae less, passin' the door."

Carmichael was astonished himself at the number of times he was obliged to see General Carnegie on business, of one kind or another. Sometimes it was about the Flower Show, of which the General had become a patron; sometimes it was the Highland Games, when the General's help would be of so much use; sometimes it was the idea of repairing the old bridge; sometimes—and Carmichael blushed when it came to this—to get the General's opinion on a military question in the Bible. The least he could do in laying such a tax on a good-natured man was to bring a book for his daughter's reading, or a curious flower he had picked up on the hill, or a story he had heard in his visiting. Miss Carnegie was generally gracious, and would see him on his way if the day were fine, or show him some improvements in the "Pleasaunce," or accompany him to Janet's cottage to have a taste of that original woman's conversation together. It came upon Carmichael at a time that he was, inadvertently, calling too frequently at the Lodge, and for a week he would keep to the main, road, or even pass the corner of the Lodge with an abstracted air—for he loathed the thought of being deflected from the path of duty by any personal attraction—and used to change the subject of conversation after Janet had spoken for half an hour on Kate.