DEAR LORD HAY,—You have done me the greatest honour any woman can receive at your hands, and for two days I have thought of nothing else. If it were enough that your wife should like and respect you, then I would at once accept you as my betrothed, but as it is plain to me that no woman ought to marry any one unless she also loves him, I am obliged to refuse one of the truest men I have ever met, for whom I have a very kindly place in my heart, and whose happiness I shall always desire.—Believe me, yours sincerely,
KATE CARNEGIE.
"You could do nothing else, Kit, and you have done right to close the matter … but I 'm sorry for Hay."
CHAPTER XXIV.
LOVE IS LORD.
t could not be said with a steady face that the proceedings of the Free Kirk Presbytery of Muirtown increased the gaiety of nations, and there might be persons—far left to themselves, of course—who would describe its members as wearisome ecclesiastics. Carmichael himself, in a mood of gay irresponsibility, had once sketched a meeting of this reverend court, in which the names were skilfully adapted, after the ancient fashion, to represent character, and the incidents, if not vero, were certainly ben trovato, and had the article ready for transmission to Ferrier's Journal. 'A Sederunt' did not, however, add to the miseries of a most courteous editor, for Jenkins, having come up for an all-night conference, and having heard the article with unfeigned delight, pointed out that, if it were accepted, which Carmichael's experience did not certify, the writer would be run down within fourteen days, and that, so unreasonable a thing is human nature, some of the Presbytery might be less than pleased with their own likenesses. "It 's in the waste-paper basket," Carmichael said next morning, which, as the author was twenty-five years of age, and not conspicuously modest, is a conclusive testimonial to the goodness of one Presbytery, and its hold on the affection of its members.
Scots take their pleasures sadly, and no one can imagine from what arid soil they may not draw their nutriment, but it was not for motions of ponderous ambiguity and pragmatical points of order, that the minister of Kincairney rose before daybreak on a winter's morning, and worked his way to the nearest station, with the stars still overhead, and the snow below his feet, so that when the clerk made a sign to the Moderator punctually at one minute past eleven to "constitute the Presbytery," he might not be missing from his place. It was the longing of a lonely man, across whose front door no visitor had come for weeks, for friendly company; of a weary minister, discouraged by narrow circumstances, monotonous routine, unexpected disappointments among his people, for a word of good cheer. A cynical stranger might discover various stupidities, peculiarities, provincialisms in the Presbytery—he knew himself who had a temper, and who was a trifle sensitive about his rights—but this middle-aged, hard-working, simple-living man saw twenty faithful brethren—the elders did not count in this connection, for they did not understand—who stood beside him on occasion at the Holy Table, and gave him advice in his perplexities, and would bury him with honest regret when he died, and fight like wild cats that his widow and children should have their due. His toilsome journey was forgotten when Doctor Dowbiggin, in an interstice of motions, came across the floor and sat down beside him, and whispered confidentially, "Well, how are things going on at Kincairney?"—Dowbiggin really deserved his leadership—or when the clerk, suddenly wheeling round in his seat, would pass his snuff-box across to him without a word, for the clerk had a way of handing his box, which, being interpreted, ran as follows:—"You suppose that I am lifted above all ordinary affairs in my clerkly isolation, and that I do not know what a solid work you are doing for God and man in the obscure parish of Kincairney, but you are wrong. You have a very warm corner in my memory, and in sign thereof accept my box." And the said minister, trudging home that evening, and being met at a certain turn of the road by his wife—sentimental at fifty, you see, after a quarter of a century's toiling and preaching—would enlarge on Doctor Dowbiggin's cordiality, and the marked courtesy of the clerk, and when they were alone in the manse, his wife would kiss him—incredible to our cynic—and say, "You see, Tom, more people than I know what a good work you are doing," and Tom would start his twenty-first lecture on the Ephesians next morning with new spirit. Such is the power of comradeship, such is the thirst for sympathy; and indeed there is no dog either so big or so little that it does not appreciate a pat, and go down the street afterwards with better heart.
The Presbytery had always a tender regard for the Free Kirk of Drumtochty, and happened to treat Carmichael with much favour. When the "call" to him was signed at once by every member of the congregation, the clerk—who had been obliged to summon Donald Menzies from Gaelic by the intimation that Drumtochty was by the law of the Church "uni-lingual, and that all proceedings must be conducted in the English language"—arose and declared that "such unanimous attention to their ecclesiastical duties was unexampled in his experience;" and when at Carmichael's ordination a certain certificate was wanting, the clerk, whose intervention was regarded with awe, proposed that the court should anticipate its arrival, dealing with the matter "proleptically," and the court saw in the very word another proof of the clerk's masterly official genius. It was he also—expressing the mind of the Presbytery—who proposed that the Court should send Carmichael as a commissioner to the General Assembly in the first year of his ministry, and took occasion to remark that Mr. Carmichael, according to "reliable information at his disposal," was rendering important service to the Free Church in his sphere at Drumtochty. Carmichael was very happy in those days, and was so petted by his ecclesiastical superiors that he never missed a meeting of court, where he either sat in a demure silence, which commended him greatly to the old men, or conversed with his friends on a back bench about general affairs.