THE NEXT VISIT TO THE MANSE.
Next night found me at the manse door, which Bell “answered.” I was very frank, but Bell had barely digested last night’s slight, and before I had finished my salutation to her she said dryly, “It’ll be the minister ye want the nicht again?” and showed me into the study. Mr. Barrie, after expressing regret at the sudden breaking up of our last night’s interview, asked me if the day had been fixed. I told him that we would prefer the last Tuesday of January, if that date suited him. He at once said, “I’ll make it suit me;” and after noting it in a memorandum book, he proceeded, although I had not mentioned the name of my future wife, to speak very nicely of the good folks at Greenknowe; of the late Mr. Stewart, who had been one of his elders, and from whom, in the earlier years of his ministry, he had received much useful counsel; of Mrs. Stewart’s almost motherly kindness ever since he came to the parish; of his great esteem for Miss Stewart (my Agnes), and of her devotion to her father, especially in his long and last illness. He also spoke of my late father and brother as excellent, very excellent men, said some things about myself which I will not repeat, and taking me by the hand, said, “Humanly speaking, your marriage promises to be in every respect a happy event for all concerned. May God bless you both, and make you blessings to one another, to all your circle, to the Church, and to the world.”
I thanked him warmly, and added that I might trouble him by asking his advice on some matters, and possibly Mrs. Barrie’s; and was proceeding to bid him good-night, when he said, “Robert, this is an occasion, I may say a great occasion, and you must take an egg with us. I told Mrs. Barrie last night that you were ‘once thinking of getting married.’ She will be delighted to learn that your second thought has got the length of fixing the day. And, whilst I am in the habit of giving all young bridegrooms a few quiet hints, I would like you to have a chat with both of us. You will find Mrs. Barrie’s counsel sound and practical, so we’ll join her in the parlour;” and suiting the action to the word, he lifted the lamp, and asking me to follow him, made for the snug parlour, where he announced me as “a subject of compound interest now, not simple as before.”
Mrs. Barrie was carefully darning a stocking, which she laid on the table as I entered, and shaking my hand with great heartiness, she said, “I need hardly wish you a happy new year, Mr. Martin. You are as sure to be happy as anybody can be sure of happiness in this world. I hope you consider yourself a very lucky man?”
I made as nice a reply as I could. Mrs. Barrie repeated her husband’s “You must take an egg with us;” and laying the half-darned stocking into her work-basket on the back table, she looked into a cradle that stood in the cosiest corner of the room, and seeing that all was right there, she said, “I must see that the other little folks are happit before I sit down,” and left the room. But before I tell of the evening’s quiet enjoyment in the manse parlour, I will say something about the inmates of the manse itself.
THE INMATES OF THE MANSE.
Mr. Barrie was ordained as minister of Blinkbonny in 1830, and early in 1831 he brought his young wife, till then Mary Gordon, home to the manse. He was a son of the manse, a son of the minimum stipend; when half through his preparatory studies he became a son of the Widows’ Fund. Mrs. Barrie’s parents had been in a very comfortable worldly position for the first sixteen years of her life, but through circumstances over which they had no control, and to which she never referred, their means had been greatly reduced. Her father died when she was eighteen years of age; her mother survived her father about four years. She was thus an orphan at twenty-two. She was twenty-five years of age when she was married, Mr. Barrie being her senior by fully one year; and whilst she brought to the manse “a good providing,” she brought little money or “tocher,” as a bride’s marriage portion is called in Scotland. The income of the minister of Blinkbonny, or, to use the church phrase, the “stipend,” was paid partly in money and partly in grain, and averaged about £160 yearly. The furnishing of the manse and the minister’s library had required and received careful consideration. Even the providing of live stock for the park, to commence with, involved an outlay that in the circumstances was considerable; but by Bell’s indefatigable industry and management, the cow, the hens, the garden, and even the pig became such important sources of supply in the household economy, that any description of the inmates of the manse would be utterly incomplete which did not make honourable mention of worthy Bell.
Bell had come with Mrs. Barrie as her first servant, and had grown up as, if not into, a part of the family. She was fully the middle height, muscular, not stout but well-conditioned, had a good complexion, a “weel-faured” face, keen, deep-set, dark eyes; and altogether she was a comely woman. I believe her full name was Isabella Cameron, but she was only known as Bell, occasionally Mr. Barrie’s Bell; so much so that when a letter came to the manse, addressed “Miss Cameron,” both Mr. and Mrs. Barrie had laid it aside, expecting that some stranger would call for it, and were instructing Bell to return it to the post office in the evening, should no Miss Cameron cast up, when Bell said, “My name’s Cameron; it’ll maybe be for me.” It was, much to Mrs. Barrie’s embarrassment, and told of the death of Bell’s aunt. Bell had few relations,—none that seemed to care for her, and consequently none that she kept up intimacy with.
BELL OF THE MANSE.
She was a year older than Mrs. Barrie. Her first “place” had been in a small farmhouse, where the manners were very primitive, and the work was very constant. One of her questions shortly after coming to the manse was, “Does Mr. Barrie aye take his dinner with his coat on?” a thing she had not seen before. Mrs. Barrie had a little difficulty in getting her to understand the proprieties, but none in getting her to do exactly as she was told. Bell felt nothing a bother, took pleasantly any explanation given as to her mistakes, laughed at them when pointed out, and with a cheerful “I’ll mind that,” thanked Mrs. Barrie. It took her some time to learn the distinctive tones of the bells, the parlour, dining-room, front door, etc.; and for the first week or two, when a bell was rung, she ran to the nearest room and tried it, then to another, sometimes to the disturbance of the folks inside; but she soon came to know them.