GOOD NEWS FROM A FAR COUNTRY
NARROW circumstances and high spirit drove forth some half-dozen young men and women from the Glen every year, to earn their living in the cities of the South. They carried with them, as a working capital, sound education, unflagging industry, absolute integrity, and an undying attachment to Drumtochty. Their one necessary luxury was a weekly copy of the Muirtown Advertiser, which four servant lasses would share between them and circulate at church doors, carefully wrapt in a page of some common daily, and their one hour of unmixed enjoyment its careful perusal, column by column, from the first word to the last. It would have been foolishness to omit the advertisements, for you might have missed the name of Drumsheugh in connection with a sale of stirks; and although at home no Drumtochty person allowed himself to take an interest in the affairs of Kildrummie or Netheraird, yet the very names of neighbouring parishes sounded kindly at the distance of Glasgow. One paragraph was kept for the last, and read from six to twelve times, because it was headed Drumtochty, and gave an account of the annual ploughing match, or the school examination, or the flower show, or a winter lecture, when Jamie Soutar had proposed the vote of thanks. Poor little news and names hard of pronunciation-; but the girl sitting alone by the kitchen fire—her fellow servants gone to bed—or the settler in the far Northwest—for he also got his Advertiser after long delays—felt the caller air blowing down the Glen, and saw the sun shining on the Tochty below the mill, and went up between the pinks and moss-roses to the dear old door—ah me! the click of the garden gate—and heard again the sound of the Hundredth Psalm in the parish kirk.
If one wished to take a complete census of our people in Glasgow, he had only to attend when Doctor Davidson preached on the fast day, and make his way afterwards to the vestry door.
“There's a gude puckle fouk waitin' tae see ye, sir,” the city beadle would say to the doctor, with much ceremony; “a'm judgin' they 're frae yir ain pairish. Is it yir wull they be admitted?”
Then in they came, craftsmen in stone and iron, clerks in offices and students from the University, housemaids and working men's wives, without distinction of persons, having spent the last ten minutes in exchanging news and magnifying the sermon. The doctor gave a Christian name to each, and some personal message from the Glen, while they, in turn, did their best to reduce his hand to pulp, and declared aloud that preaching like his could not be got outside Drumtochty, to the huge delight of Bigheart, minister of the church, who was also a Chaplain to the Queen and all Scotland.
The Dispersion endured any sacrifice to visit the old Glen, and made their appearance from various places, at regular intervals, like Jews coming up to Jerusalem. An exile was careful to arrive at Muirtown Station on a Friday afternoon, so that he might join the Drumtochty contingent on their way home from market. It is not to be supposed, however, that there was any demonstration when he showed himself on the familiar platform where Drumtochty men compared notes with other parishes at the doors of the Dunleith train.
“Is that you, Robert? ye 'ill be gaein' wast the nicht,” was the only indication Hillocks would give before the general public that he had recognised young Netherton after three years' absence, and then he would complete his judgment on the potato crop as if nothing had happened.
“Ye're there, aifter a', man; a' wes feared the sooth train micht be late,” was all the length even Netherton's paternal feelings would carry him for the time; “did ye see that yir box wes pit in the van?” and the father and son might travel in different compartments to the Junction. Drumtochty retained still some reticence, and did not conduct its emotions in public, but it had a heart. When the van of the Dunleith train had cleared the Junction and Drumtochty was left to itself—for Kildrummie did not really count—it was as when winter melts into spring.
“Hoo are ye, Robert, hoo are ye? gied tae see ye,” Drumsheugh would say, examining the transformed figure from head to foot; “man, a' wud hardly hae kent ye. Come awa an' gie 's yir news,” and the head of the commonwealth led the way to our third with Robert, Drumtochty closing in behind.
Preliminaries were disposed of in the run to Kildrummie, and as the little company made their way through the pine woods, and down one side of the Glen, and over the Tochty bridge, and up the other slope to the parting of the ways, Robert was straitly questioned about the magnitude of the work he did in Glasgow, and the customs of the people, and the wellbeing of every single Drumtochty person in that city, and chiefly as to the sermons he had heard, their texts and treatment. On Sabbath the group at the kirk door would open up at Robert's approach, but he would only nod in a shamefaced way to his friends and pass on; for it was our etiquette that instead of remaining to gossip, a son should on such occasions go in with his mother and sit beside her in the pew, who on her part would mistake the psalm that he might find it for her, and pay such elaborate attention to the sermon that every one knew she was thinking only of her son.