"Any man," he used to say to his reverend brother of Kildrummie, as they went home from the Presbytery together, "who gets unto a wrangle with his farmers about a collection is either an upstart or he is a fool, and in neither case ought he to be a minister of the Church of Scotland." And the two old men would lament the decay of the ministry over their wine in Kildrummie Manse—being both of the same school, cultured, clean-living, kind-hearted, honourable, but not extravagantly evangelical clergymen. They agreed in everything except the matter of their after-dinner wine, Dr. Davidson having a partiality for port, while the minister of Kildrummie insisted that a generous claret was the hereditary drink of a Scottish gentleman. This was only, however, a subject of academic debate, and was not allowed to interfere with practice—the abbe of Drumtochty taking his bottle of claret, in an appreciative spirit, and the cure of Kildrummie disposing of his two or three glasses of port with cheerful resignation.
If Drumtochty exalted its minister above his neighbours, it may be urged in excuse that Scottish folk are much affected by a man's birth, and Dr. Davidson had a good ancestry. He was the last of his line, and represented a family that for two centuries had given her sons to the Kirk. Among those bygone worthies, the Doctor used to select one in especial for honourable mention. He was a minister of Dunleith, whose farmers preferred to play ball against the wall of the kirk to hearing him preach, and gave him insolence on his offering a pious remonstrance. Whereupon the Davidson of that day, being, like all his race, short in stature, but mighty in strength, first beat the champion player one Sabbath morning at his own game to tame an unholy pride, and then thrashed him with his fist to do good to his soul. This happy achievement in practical theology secured an immediate congregation, and produced so salutary an effect on the schismatic ball-player that he became in due course an elder, and was distinguished for his severity in dealing with persons absenting themselves from public worship, or giving themselves overmuch to vain amusements.
At the close of the last century the Doctor's grandfather was minister of the High Kirk, Muirtown, where he built up the people in loyalty to Kirk and State, and himself recruited for the Perthshire Fencibles. He also delivered a sermon entitled "The French Revolution the just judgment of the Almighty on the spirit of insubordination," for which he received a vote of thanks from the Lord Provost and Bailies of Muirtown in council assembled, as well as a jewel from the Earl of Kilspindie, the grandfather of our lord, which the Doctor inherited and wore on the third finger of his left hand. Had Carmichael or any other minister decked himself after this fashion, it had not fared well with him, but even the Free Kirk appreciated a certain pomp in Dr. Davidson, and would have resented his being as other men. He was always pleased to give the history of the ring, and generally told a story of his ancestor, which he had tasted much more frequently than the sermon. A famous judge had asked him to dinner as he made his circuit, and they had disputed about the claret, till at last its excellence compelled respect at the close of the first bottle.
"'Now, Reverend Sir,' said the judge, 'this wine has been slandered and its fair fame taken away without reason. I demand that you absolve it from the scandal.'
"'My Lord,' said my worthy forbear, 'you are a great criminal lawyer, but you are not well read in Kirk law, for no offender can be absolved without three appearances.'
"My grandfather," the Doctor used to conclude, "had the best of that jest besides at least two bottles of claret, for in those days a clergyman took more wine than we would now think seemly, although, mark you, the old gentleman always denounced drunkenness on two grounds: first, because it was an offence against religion, and second, because it was a sign of weakness."
Some old folk could remember the Doctor's father, who never attained to the Doctorate, but was a commanding personage. He published no sermons, but as the first Davidson in Drumtochty, he laid the foundations of good government. The Kilspindie family had only recently come into the parish—having purchased the larger part of the Carnegies' land—and Drumtochty took a thrawn fit, and among other acts of war pulled down time after time certain new fences. The minister was appealed to by his lordship, and having settled the rights of the matter, he bade the factor wait in patience till the Sacrament, and Drumsheugh's father used to tell unto the day of his death, as a historical event, how the Doctor's father stood at the communion-table and debarred from the Sacrament evil livers of all kinds, and that day in especial all who had broken Lord Kilspindie's fences,—which was an end of the war. There was a picture of him in the Doctor's study, showing a very determined gentleman, who brought up both his parish and his family upon the stick, and with undeniable success.
With such blood in his veins it was not to be expected that our Doctor should be after the fashion of a modern minister. No one had ever seen him (or wished to see him) in any other dress than black cloth, and a broad-brimmed silk hat, with a white stock of many folds and a bunch of seals depending from some mysterious pocket. His walk, so assured, so measured, so stately, was a means of grace to the parish, confirming every sound and loyal belief, and was crowned, so to say, by his stick, which had a gold head, and having made history in the days of his father, had reached the position of a hereditary sceptre. No one could estimate the aid and comfort that stick gave to the Doctor's visits, but one quite understood the force of the comparison Hillocks once drew, after the Doctor's death, between the coming to his house of the Doctor and a "cry" from his energetic successor under the new régime.
"He 's a hard-workin' body, oor new man, aye rin rinnin', fuss fussin' roond the pairish, an' he 's a pop'lar hand in the pulpit, but it's a puir business a veesit frae him.
"It's juist in an' oot like a cadger buyin' eggs, nae peace an' nae solemnity. Of coorse it's no his blame that he 's naethin' tae look at, for that's the wy he wes made, an' his father keepit a pig (china) shop, but at ony rate he micht get a wise-like stick.