Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers

by Ian Maclaren

This railing against marriage on the part of his friends was pure boyishness, and they all were engaged on the mere prospect of a kirk, but Carmichael had more of a mind on the matter. There was in him an ascetic bent, inherited from some Catholic ancestor, and he was almost convinced that a minister would serve God with more abandonment in the celibate state. As an only child, and brought up by a mother given to noble thoughts, he had learned to set women in a place by themselves, and considered marriage for ordinary men to flavour of sacrilege. His mother had bound it as a law upon him that he was never to exercise his tongue on a woman's failings, never to argue with a woman unto her embarrassment, never to regard her otherwise than as his superior. Women noticed that Carmichael bore himself to them as if each were a Madonna, and treated him in turn according to their nature. Some were abashed, and could not understand the lad's shyness; those were saints. Some were amused, and suspected him of sarcasm; those were less than saints. Some horrified him unto confusion of face because of the shameful things they said. One middle-aged female, whose conversation oscillated between physiology and rescue work, compelled Carmichael to sue for mercy on the ground that he had not been accustomed to speak about such details of life with a woman, and ever afterwards described him as a prude. It seemed to Carmichael that he was disliked by some women because he thought more highly of them than they thought of themselves.

Carmichael was much tried by the baser of his fellow-students, especially a certain class of smug, self-contented, unctuous men, who neither had endured hardship to get to college, nor did any work at college. They were described in reports as the "fruits of the revival," and had been taken from behind counters and sent to the University, not because they had any love of letters, like Domsie's lads at Drumtochty, but because rich old ladies were much impressed by the young men's talk, and the young men were perfectly aware that they would be better off in the ministry than in any situation they could gain by their own merits. As Carmichael grew older, and therefore more charitable, he discovered with what faulty tools the work of the world and even of kirks is carried on, and how there is a root of good in very coarse and common souls. When he was a young judge—from whom may the Eternal deliver us all—he was bitter against the "fruits," as he called them, because they did their best to escape examinations, and spoke in a falsetto voice, and had no interest in dogs, and because they told incredible tales of their spiritual achievements. But chiefly did Carmichael's gorge rise against those unfortunates because of the mean way they spoke of marriage, and on this account, being a high-spirited young fellow, he said things which could hardly be defended, and of which afterwards he honestly repented.

"Yes, religion is profitable for both worlds," one of them would exhort by the junior common-room fire, "and if you doubt it, look at me; five-and-twenty shillings a week as a draper's assistant was all I had, and no chance of rising. Now I 'm a gentleman"—here Carmichael used to look at the uncleanly little man and snort—"and in two years I could ask any girl in religious society, and she would take me. A minister can marry any woman, if he be evangelical. Ah," he would conclude, with a fine strain of piety, "the Gospel is its own reward."

What enraged Carmichael as he listened in the distance to these paeans of Pharisaism was the disgusting fact that the "fruits" did carry off great spoil in the marriage field, so that to a minister without culture, manners, or manliness, a middle-class family would give their pet daughter, when they would have refused her to a ten times better man fighting his way up in commerce. If she died, then this enterprising buccaneer would achieve a second and third conquest, till in old age he would rival the patriarchs in the number of his wives and possessions. As for the girl, Carmichael concluded that she was still under the glamour of an ancient superstition, and took the veil after a very commonplace and squalid Protestant fashion. This particular "fruit" against whom Carmichael in his young uncharitableness especially raged, because he was more self-complacent and more illiterate than his fellows, married the daughter of a rich self-made man, and on the father's death developed a peculiar form of throat disease, which laid him aside from the active work of the ministry—a mysterious providence, as he often explained—but allowed him to enjoy life with a guarded satisfaction. What Carmichael said to him about his ways and his Gospel was very unpleasant and quite unlike Carmichael's kindly nature, but the only revenge the victim took was to state his conviction that Scotland would have nothing to do with a man that was utterly worldly, and in after years to warn vacant churches against one who did not preach the Cross.

After one of those common-room encounters, Carmichael used to fling himself out into the east wind and greyness of Edinburgh, fuming against the simplicity of good people, against the provincialism of his college, against the Pharisaism of his church, against the Philistinism of Scottish life. He would go down to Holyrood and pity Queen Mary, transported from the gay court of France to Knox's Scotland, divided between theology and bloodshed. In the evening he would sweep his table clean of German books on the Pentateuch, and cover it with prints of the old masters, which he had begun to collect, and ancient books of Catholic devotion, and read two letters to his mother from her uncle, who had been a Vicar-General, and died in an old Scottish convent in Spain. There was very little in the letters beyond good wishes, and an account of the Vicar-General's health, but they seemed to link a Free Kirk divinity student on to the Holy Catholic Church. Mother Church cast her spell over his imagination, and he envied the lot of her priests, who held a commission no man denied and administered a world-wide worship, whom a splendid tradition sanctioned, whom each of the arts hastened to aid; while he was to be the minister of a local sect and work with the "fruits," who knew nothing of Catholic Christianity, but supposed their little eddy, whereon they danced like rotten sticks, to be the main stream. Next day a reaction would set in, and Carmichael would have a fit of Bohemianism, and resolve to be a man of letters. So the big books on theology would again be set aside, and he would write an article for Ferrier's Journal, that kindliest of all journals to the young author, which he would receive back in a week "with thanks." The Sunday night came, and Carmichael sat down to write his weekly letter to his mother—she got notes between, he found them all in her drawers, not a scrap missing—and as he wrote, his prejudices, and petulances, and fancies, and unrest passed away. Before he had told her all that happened to him during the week—touching gently on the poor Revivalist—although his mother had a saving sense of humour, and was a quite wonderful mimic—and saying nothing of his evening with St. Francis de Sales—for this would have alarmed her at once—he knew perfectly well that he would be neither a Roman nor a reporter, but a Free Kirk minister, and was not utterly cast down; for notwithstanding the yeasty commotion of youth and its censoriousness, he had a shrewd idea that a man is likely to do his life-work best in the tradition of his faith and blood. Next morning his heart warmed as he went in through the college gates, and he would have defended Knox unto the death, as the maker of Scotland. His fellow-students seemed now a very honest set of men, as indeed they were, although a trifle limited in horizon, and he hoped that one of the "fruits" was "satisfied with his Sunday's work," which shows that as often as a man of twenty-one gets out of touch with reality, he ought straightway to sit down and write to his mother. Carmichael indeed told me one evening at the Cottage that he never had any mystical call to the ministry, but only had entered the Divinity Hall instead of going to Oxford because his mother had this for her heart's desire, and he loved her. As a layman it perhaps did not become me to judge mysteries, but I dared to say that any man might well be guided by his mother in religion, and that the closer he kept to her memory the better he would do his work. After which both of us smoked furiously, and Carmichael, two minutes later, was moved to remark that some Turkish I had then was enough to lure a man up Glen Urtach in the month of December.

The young minister was stirred on the way to Kilbogie, and began to dream dreams in the twilight. Love had come suddenly to him, and after an unexpected fashion. Miss Carnegie was of another rank and another faith, nor was she even his ideal woman, neither conspicuously spiritual nor gentle, but frank, outspoken, fearless, self-willed. He could also see that she had been spoiled by her father and his friends, who had given her carte blanche to say and do what she pleased. Very likely—he could admit that even in the first blush of his emotion—she might be passionate and prejudiced on occasion, even a fierce hater. This he had imagined in the Tochty woods, and was not afraid, for her imperfections seemed to him a provocation and an attraction. They were the defects of her qualities—of her courage, candour, generosity, affection. Carmichael leant upon a stile, and recalled the carriage of her head, the quick flash of her eye, the tap of her foot, the fascination of her manner. She was free from the affectations, gaucheries, commonplaces, wearinesses of many good women he had known. St. Theresa had been the woman enshrined in the tabernacle of his heart, but life might have been a trifle tiresome if a man were married to a saint. The saints have no humour, and do not relax. Life with a woman like Miss Carnegie would be effervescent and stimulating, full of surprises and piquancy. No, she was not a saint, but he felt by an instinct she was pure, loyal, reverent, and true at the core. She was a gallant lass, and … he loved her.

Mother Church cast her spell over his imagination.

What an absurdity was this revery, and Carmichael laughed aloud at himself. Twice he had met Miss Carnegie—on one occasion she had found him watering strange dogs out of his hat, and on the other he had given her to understand that women were little removed from fools. He had made the worst of himself, and this young woman who had lived with smart people must have laughed at him. Very likely she had made him into a story, for as a raconteur himself he knew the temptation to work up raw material, or perhaps Miss Carnegie had forgotten long ago that he had called. Suppose that he should call to-morrow on his way home and say, "General Carnegie, I think it right to tell you that I admire your daughter very much, and should like your permission to pay my addresses. I am Free Church minister in Drumtochty, and my stipend is 200 pounds a year" … his laugh this time was rather bitter. The Carnegies would be at once admitted into the county set, and he would only meet them at a time … Lord Hay was a handsome and pleasant young fellow. He would be at Glen Urtach House for the shooting in a few days … that was a likely thing to happen … the families were old friends … there would be great festivities in the Glen … perhaps he would be asked to propose the bride's health … It really seemed a providence that Saunderson should come along the road when he was playing the fool like a puling boy, for if any man could give a douche to love-sickness it was the minister of Kilbogie.