The Stickit Minister's Wooing/The Suit of Bottle Green
THE SUIT OF BOTTLE GREEN
At the Manse of Dullarg things did not go over well. Dr. Stuart, being by nature a quick, passionate, and imperious Celt, had first of all ordered his daughter to promise never again to hold any communication with the young Cameronian minister of Cairn Edward. It was thus that he himself had been taught to understand family discipline. He was the head of the clan, as his father had been before him. He claimed to be Providence to all within his gates. His hand of correction was not withheld from his boys, Frank and Sandy, until the day they ran away from home to escape him. He could not well adopt this plan to the present case, but when Elspeth refused point blank to give any promise, her father promptly convoyed his daughter to her own room and locked her up there. She would stay where she was till she changed her mind. Her aunt would take up her meals, and he himself would undertake to inform her as to her duties and responsibilities at suitable intervals. There was not the least doubt in the mind of Dr. Stuart as to the result of such a course of treatment. Had he not willed it? That was surely enough.
But his sister was not so sure, though she did not dare to say so to the Doctor more than once.
"She is a very headstrong girl, Murdo," she said, tremulously, as she gathered Elspeth's scanty breakfast on a tray next morning, "it might drive her to some rash act!"
"Nonsense," retorted her brother, sharply, "did not our father do exactly the same to you, to keep you from marrying young Campbell of Luib?"
Mary Stuart's wintry-apple face twitched and flushed.
"Yes—yes," she fluttered, with a quaver in her voice, as if deprecating further allusion to herself, "but Elspeth is not like me, Murdo. She has more of your spirit."
"Let me hear no more of the matter," said her brother, turning away, "I wish it, and besides, I have my sermon to write."
But when the maiden aunt knocked at the door and entered with Elspeth's breakfast, she was astonished to find the girl sitting by the window dressed exactly as she had been on the previous evening. Her face was very pale, but her lips were compressed and her eyes dry.
"Elspeth," she said uncertainly, her woman's intuition in a moment detecting that which a man might not have discovered at all, "you have not had off your clothes all night. You have never been to bed!"
"No, Aunt Mary!"
"But what will the Doctor say—think of your father"
"I do not care what he will say. Let him come and compel me if he can. He can thrash me as he does Frank."
"But—oh, Elspeth—Elspeth, dear," the old lady trembled so much that she just managed to lay the tray down on the untouched bed opposite the window, "what will God say?"
"'Like as a father pitieth his children,' isn't that what it says?" The words came out of the depths of the bitterness of that young heart, "well, if that be true, God will say nothing; for if He is like my father, He will not care!"
The old lady sat down on an old rocking-chair which Elspeth liked to keep in the window to sit in and read, half because it had been her mother's, and half (for Elspeth was not usually a sentimental young woman) because it was comfortable.
She put her hands to her face and sobbed into them. Then for the first time Elspeth looked at her. Hitherto she had been staring straight out at the window. So she had seen the day pass and the night come. So she had seen and not seen, heard and not heard the shadow of night sweep across the broad river, the stars come out, the cue owls mew as they flashed past silent as insects on the wing, and last of all, the rooks clamour upwards from the tall trees at break of day.
Now, however, she watched her aunt weeping with that curious sense of detachment which comes to the young along with a first great sorrow.
"Why should she weep?" Elspeth was asking herself; "she had nothing to cry for. There can be no sorrow in the world like my sorrow and shame—and his, that is, if he really cares. Perhaps he does not care. They say in books that men often pretend. But no—he at least never could do that. He is too true, too simple, too direct—and he loves me!"
So she watched her aunt rock to and fro and sob without any pity in her heart, but only with a growing wonderment—much as a condemned man might look at a companion who was complaining of toothache. The long vigil of the night had made the girl's heart numb and dead within her. At twenty sorrow and joy alike arrive in superlatives.
Then quite suddenly a spasm of pity of a curious sort came to Elspeth Stuart. After all, it was worth while to love. He was suffering too. Aunt Mary had no one to love her—to suffer with her. Poor Aunt Mary! So she went quickly across and laid her hand on the thin shoulder. It felt angular even through the dress. The sobs shook it.
"Do not cry, auntie," she said, softly and kindly. "I am sorry I vexed you. I did not know."
The old lady looked up at her niece. Elspeth started at the sight of a tear stealing down a wrinkle. Tears on young faces are in place. They can be kissed away, but this seemed wrong somehow.
She patted the thin cheek which had already begun to take on the dry satiny feel of age, which is so different from the roseleaf bloom of youth.
"Then you will obey your father?"
The words came tremulously. The pale lips "wickered." The tear had trickled thus far now, but Aunt Mary did not know it. It is only youth that tastes its own tears. And generally rather likes the flavour.
Elspeth did not stop petting her aunt. She stroked the soft hair, thinning now and silvering. Then she smiled a little.
"No," she said, "I will not obey my father, Aunt Mary. I am no child to be put in the corner. I am a woman, and know what I want."
Yet it was only during the past night watches that she had known it for certain. But yesterday her desire to see Allan Syme had been no more than a little ache deep down in her heart. Now it had become all her life. So fertile a soil wherein to grow love is injudicious opposition.
"But at any rate you will take your breakfast?"
"To please you I will try, aunt!"
Aunt Mary plucked up heart at once. This was better. She had made a beginning. The rest would follow.
When she went downstairs her brother came out of his study to get the key of his daughter's room. She told him how that Elspeth had never gone to bed, and had barely picked at her breakfast.
Dr. Stuart made no remark. He turned and went into his study again to work at his sermon. He too thought that all went well. He held that belief which causes so much misery in the world, that woman's will must always bend before man's.
So it does—provided the man is the right man.
*******
On the third day of her confinement Elspeth Stuart wrote a letter. It began without ceremony, and ended without signature:
"You told me that you loved me. Tell it me again—on paper. I am very unhappy. My father keeps me locked up to make me promise never to speak to you or write to you. I do not mind this, except that I cannot go to Lowe's Seat. But I must be assured that you continue to love me. I know you do, but all the same I want to be told it. If you address, 'Care of the Widow Barr, at the Village of Crosspatrick,' Frank will bring it safely."
It was a simple epistle, without lofty aspirations or wise words. But it was a loving letter, and admirably adapted to prove satisfactory to its recipient. And had Allan Syme known what was on its way to him he would have lifted up his heart. He was completing his pastoral visitation, and with a sort of fixed despair awaiting the next meeting of Session. For neither his ruling elder nor yet that slow-spoken veteran, Matthew Carment, had passed a word more to him concerning the vision they had seen upon the fringes of the Airds woods, on the day that had proved such a day of doom to his sweetheart and himself.
*******
Frank Stuart, keenly sympathetic with Elspeth's sufferings though notably contemptuous of their cause, willingly performed what was required of him. Being as yet untouched by love, he thought Elspeth extremely silly. He had no interest ministers. If Elspeth had fallen in love with a soldier now—he meant to be a sailor himself, but a soldier was at least somebody in the scheme of things. Of course, his father was a minister—but then people must have fathers. This was different. However, it was not his business: girls were all silly.
And on this broad principle Master Frank took his stand. With equal breadth of view he conveyed the letter to the "Weedow's" at Crosspatrick, en route for the Cameronian manse at Cairn Edward.
But before he set out, he must have his grumble. He was beneath the window of his sister's room at the time. His father had been under observation all the morning, and was now safely off on his visitations. By arrangement with Aunt Mary, Elspeth was allowed the run of the whole upper story of the Dullarg Manse during Dr. Stuart's daily absences. So, on parole, she came to this little window in the gable end, where Frank and she could commune without fear of foreign observation.
"What for could ye no have promised my father onything—and then no done it!"
The suggestion betrayed Master Frank's own plan of campaign, and renders more excusable the Doctor's frequent appeal to the argument of the hazel.
*******
After this there ensued for Elspeth a long and weary time. Every day Frank, detaching himself from the untrustworthy Sandy, slid off down the waterside to Crosspatrick. Every day he returned empty-handed and contemptuous.
This it was to love a minister, and one who was not even a "regular." Why had not Elspeth, if she must fall in love, chosen a sailor?
In those days there was no regular postal delivery on the remoter country districts. The mails came in an amateurish sort of way by coach to Cairn Edward, and thereafter distributed themselves, as it were, automatically. When the postage was paid, the authorities had no more care in the matter. Yet there was a kind of system in the thing, too.
It was understood that any one being in Cairn Edward on business should "give a look in" at the Post Office, and if there were any letters for his neighbourhood, and he happened to have in his pocket the necessary spare "siller" at the moment, he would pay the postage and bring them to the "Weedow Barr's" shop in the village of Crosspatrick.
It may be observed that there were elements of uncertainty inseparable from such an arrangement. And these told hard on our poor prisoner of fate during these great endless midsummer days. She pined and grew pale, like a woodland bird shut suddenly in a close cage at that season when mate begins to call to mate through all the copses of birch and alder.
"He does not love me—oh, he cannot love me!" she moaned. But again, as she thought of the stile on the way to Lowe's Seat—"But he does love me!" she said.
*******
Then, sudden as a falling star, Fear fell on that green summer world. There came a weird sough through all the valley, a crying of folk to each other across level holms, shrill answerings of herd to herd on the utmost hills. The scourge of God had come again! The Cholera—the Cholera! Dread word, which we in these times have almost forgot the thrill of in our flesh. Mysteriously and inevitably the curse swept on. It was at Leith—at Glasgow—at Dumfries—at Cairn Edward. It was coming! coming! coming! Nearer, nearer—ever nearer!
And men at the long scythe, sweeping the lush meadow hay aside with that most prideful of all rustic gestures, fell suddenly chill and shuddered to their marrows. The sweat of endeavour dried on them, and left them chill, as if the night wind had stricken them. Women with child swarfed with fear at their own door cheeks, and there was a crying within long ere the posset-cup could be made ready. Neighbour looked with sudden suspicion at neighbour, and men at friendly talk upon the leas manœuvred to get to windward of each other.
Death was coming—had come! And in his study, grim and unmoved, Dr. Murdo Stuart sat preparing his Sabbath's sermon on the text, "Therefore ... because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel!"
But in the shut chamber above Elspeth waited and watched, the hope that is deferred making her young heart sicker and ever sicker. Still she had not heard. No answering word had reached her, and it was now the second week. He did not love her—he could not.
But still!
They had told her nothing, and, indeed, during that first time of fear and uncertainty, they knew nothing for certain, away up by themselves in the wide wild moor parish of Dullarg. There were no market days in Cairn Edward any more. So much the farmers knew. The men of the landward parishes set guards with loaded guns upon every outgoing road. There was no local authority in those days, and men in such cases had to look to themselves. The infected place, be it city, town, or village, farm-steading or cottage, was completely and bitterly isolated. None might come out or go in. Provisions, indeed, were left in a convenient spot; but secretly and by night. And the bearer shot away again, bent half to the ground with eagerness, fear, and speed, a cloth to his mouth, for the very wind that passed over him was Death. It was not so much a disease as a certain Fate. Whoso was smitten was taken. In fact, to all that rustic world it was the Visitation of Very God.
In the main street of Cairn Edward grass grew; yet the place was not unpopulous. With the revival of trade and industry during the later years of the great war a cotton mill had been erected in a side street. The houses of the work folk were strung out from it. Then parallel with this there was a more ancient main street of low beetle-browed houses, many of them entering by a step down off the uneven causeway. At the upper end, near the Cross, were some better-class houses, some of them of two storeys, a change-house or two, and down on the damp marshy land towards the loch, the cluster of huts which had formed the original nucleus of the village—now fallen into disrepute and disrepair, and nominated, from the nationality of many of its inhabitants, "Little Dublin."
In ten days a third of the inhabitants of this suburb had died. There was but one minister within the strait bounds of the straggling village. The parish church and manse lay two miles away out on a braeface overlooking yellowing widths of corn-land. And the minister thereof abode in his breaches, every day giving God thank that he was not shut up within those distant white streets, from which, day by day, the housewifely reek rose in fewer and fewer columns.
But Allan Syme was within, and could not pause to marry or to give in marriage, to preach or to pray, so full of his Master's business was he. For he must nurse and succour by day and bury by night, week day and Holy Day. He it was who upheld the dying head. He swathed the corpse while it was yet warm. He tolled the death-bell in the steeple. He harnessed the horse to the rude farm-cart. Sometimes all alone he dug the grave in the soft marshy flow, and laid the dead in the brown peat-mould. For it was no time to stand upon trifles this second time that the Scourge of God had come to Cairn Edward.
To the outer limit of the cordon of watchers came the carriers and the farmers, the country lairds' servants, and less frequently the bien well-stomached meal millers. In silence they deposited their goods, for the most part with no niggard hand. In silence they took the fumigated pound notes, smelling of sulphur, or the silver coin of the realm, with the crumbles of quick-lime still sticking to the milling of the edges.
So across a kind of neutral zone, fearful country and infected town stood glowering at each other like embattled enemies, musket laid ready in the crook of elbow.
And when one mad with the Fear tried to cross, he was hunted like a wild beast, or shot at like a rabbit running for its burrow. And the townsmen did in like manner. For ill as it might fare with them, there was deadlier yet to fear. In Cairn Edward they had the White Cholera, as it was called. The Black was at Dumfries—so, at least, the tale ran.
And as he went about his work, Allan Syme called upon his God, and thought of Elspeth. But her letter never reached him, and he knew nothing of her vigils. The day before he might have known the Fear fell, and the door was shut.
*******
It was on Saturday afternoon that the tidings came to Elspeth Stuart, lonely watcher and loving heart. It was her brother Sandy who brought them. He knew nothing of Elspeth's matters, being young and by nature unworthy of trust. He had been down to Crosspatrick on some errand, and now, having arrived back within hailing distance, he was retailing his experiences to his brother Frank.
"I got yon letter back frae the Weedow—an', as I wasna gangin' hame, I gied it to my faither."
"What letter?"
Elspeth could hear the sudden angry alarm in Frank's voice; but she herself had no premonition of danger.
"The letter ye took doon to Crosspatrick for Elspeth ten days syne. Ye'll catch it, my man!"
The girl's heart sank, and then leapt again within her.
Her father had her letter—he would read it. It was plainly addressed in her handwriting to Allan Syme. What should she do?
But wait—there was something else. With a quick back-spang came the countering joy.
"But then he has never got my letter. He knows nothing of my unhappiness. He has not forgotten me. He loves me still. What care I for aught else but that?"
There came up from the courtyard a sound of blows, and then Sandy's wail.
"I'll tell my faither on ye, that I will. How was I to ken aboot Elspeth's letter? And they say the minister-man it was wrote to is dead, at ony rate!"
Elspeth heard unbelievingly. Dead—Allan dead! And she not know. Absurd! It was only one of Sandy's lies to irritate his brother because he had been thrashed. She knew Sandy. Nevertheless she threw up the window. Sandy was again at his parable.
"They buried twenty-five yesterday in the moss. The minister was there wi' the last coffin, and fell senseless across it. He never spoke again. He is to be buried the morn if they can get the coffin made!"
Then, so soon as she was convinced that Sandy was not inventing, and that he had only repeated the gossip of the village, a kind of cold calmness took hold of Elspeth. She called Frank in to her, and when he came, lo! his face was far whiter than hers.
She made him tell her all they had kept from her—of the dread plague that had fallen so sudden and swift upon the townlet to which Allan had carried her heart. Then she thought awhile fiercely, not wavering in her purpose, but only trying this way and that, like one who thrusts with his staff for the safest passage over a dangerous bog. Frank watched her keenly, but could make nothing of her intent. At last she spoke:
"Go and get me the key of your box."
"What do ye want with the key of my box?" queried her brother, astonished.
"Never heed that," said Elspeth, clipping her words imperiously, as, in seasons of stress, she had a way of doing; "do as I bid you!"
And being accustomed to such obediences, and albeit sorry for her, Frank went out, only remarking ominously that he would have a job, for that Aunt Mary carried it on her bunch.
He came back in exactly ten minutes, and threw the key on the floor.
"Easier than I expected," he said, triumphantly; "the old buzzer was asleep!"
"Give me the key," said Elspeth, still in a brown study by the window.
But this was too much for Frank.
"Pick it up for yourself, Els," he said, "and mind you are to swear you found it on the floor!"
Frank knew very well that if one is going to lie back and forth (as he intended to do when questioned), it is well to be prepared with occasional little scraps of truth. They cheer one up so.
Elspeth took the key, and hid it in her pocket.
"Now you can go," she said, and sat down on the bed, staring out at the broad river quietly slipping by.
"Well, you might at least have said 'thank you'" began Frank. But catching the expression of her face, he suddenly desisted, and went out without another word.
*******
No, Allan Syme was not dead. But he staggered home that night certainly more dead than alive. All day long he had moved in an atmosphere of the most appalling pestilence. The reek of mortality seemed to solidify in his nostrils, and his heart for the first time fainted within him.
He knew that there would be no welcome for him in the dark and lonely manse; no meal, no comfort, no living voice; not so much as a dog to lick his hand. His housekeeper, a mere hireling, had fled at the first alarm.
It was dusk as he thrust the key into the latch, as he did so staggering against the lintel from sheer weariness. He stood a little while in the passage, shuddering with the oncomings of mortal sickness. Then with flint, steel, and laborious tinder box he coaxed a light for the solitary taper on the hall table. This done, he turned aside into the little sitting-room on the right hand, where he kept his divinity books.
A slight figure came forward to meet him, with upturned face and clasped petitionary hands. The action was a girl's, but the dress and figure were those of a boy. Upon the threshold the minister stopped dead. He thought that this was the first symptom of delirium—he had seen it in so many, and had watched for it in himself.
But the lad still came forward, and laid a hand on his arm. He wore a suit of bottle green with silver buttons, a world too wide for his slim form. Knee breeches and buckled shoes completed his attire. Allan Syme stared wide-eyed, uncomprehending, his hand pressed to his aching brow in the effort to see truly.
"You are not dead. Thank God!" said the boy, in a voice that took him by the throat.
"Who—who are you?" The words came dry and gasping from the minister's parched lips.
"I am Elspeth—do you not know me?"
"Elspeth—Elspeth—why did you come here—and thus?"
"They told me you were dead—and my father locked me up! And—what chance had a girl to pass the guards? They fired at me—see!"
And lifting a wet curl from her brow, she showed a wound.
"Elspeth—Elspeth—what is all this? What have they done to you?"
"Nothing—nothing—it is but a scratch. The man almost missed me altogether."
"Beloved, what have you done with your hair?"
"I cut it off, that I might the better deceive them!"
"Elspeth—you must go back! This is no place for you!"
"I will not go back home. I will die first!"
"But, Elspeth, think if any one saw you—what would they say?"
"That I came to help you—to nurse you! I do not care what they would say."
"My dear—my dear, you cannot bide here. I would to God you could; but you cannot. I must think how to get you away. I must think—I must think!"
The minister, sick unto death, stood with his hand still pressed to his brow. At sight of him, and because, after all she had gone through for him, he had given her neither welcome nor kiss, a swift spasm of anger flashed up into Elspeth's eyes.
"You are ashamed of me, Allan Syme—let me go. I will never see you more. You do not love me! I will not trouble you. Open the door!"
"God knows I love you better than my soul!" said Allan; "but let me think. Father in heaven—I cannot think! My brain runs round."
He gave a slight lurch like a felled ox, and swayed forward.
Instantly, as a lamp that the wind blows out, all the anger went out of Elspeth Stuart's eyes. She caught Allan in her strong young arms and laid him on the worn couch, displacing with a sweep of her hand a whole score of volumes as she laid him down.
He lay a moment stiff and still. Then a spasm of pain contorted his features. He opened his eyes, and looked into his sweetheart's eyes. Then, with the swift astonishing clearness of the mortally stricken, he saw what must be done.
"Allan, Allan, what is the matter—what shall I do for you?" she mourned over him.
"Do this," answered the minister. "Take the cloak out of that cupboard there. I have never worn it. Go straight to John Allanson. He is my Ruling Elder. He bides at his daughter's house close by the cotton mill. Tell him all, and bid him come to me."
"The dreadful man who was so angry—that day at Lowe's Seat!" she objected, not fearing for herself, but for him.
"He is not a dreadful man. Do as I bid you, childie; I am sick, but I judge not unto death!"
"But you may die before I return!"
"Do as I bid you, Elspeth," said the minister, waving her away; "not a hundred choleras can deprive me of one minute God has appointed mine!"
She bent over quickly, and kissed him on lips and brow.
"There—and there! Now if you die, I will die too. Remember that! And I do not care now. I will go!"
Saying this, she rushed from the room.
*******
It was a strange visitor who came to the house of the Elder's daughter that evening, as the gloaming fell darker, her feet making no sound on the deserted and grass-grown streets.
"A young laddie wants to see you, father," said John Allanson's married daughter, with whom he had been lodging for a night when the plague came, in a single hour putting a great gulf between town and country. Then, finding his minister alone, he was not the man to leave him to fight the battle single-handed.
Shamefacedly Elspeth crept in. The old man and his daughter were by themselves, the husband not yet home from the joiner's shop, where the hammers went tap-tap at the plain deal coffins all day and all night.
"The minister is dying—come and help him or he will die!" she cried, as they sat looking curiously at her in the clear, leaping red of the firelight.
"Who are you, laddie?" said the elder.
"I am no laddie," said Elspeth, redder than the peat ashes. "Oh, I am shamed—I am shamed! But I could not help it. And I am not sorry! They told me he was dead. I am Elspeth Stuart, of the Dullarg Manse."
The elder sat gazing at her, open-mouthed, leaning forward, his hands on his knees. But his daughter, with the quick sympathy of woman, held out her arms.
"My puir lassie!" she said. She had once lost a bairn, her only one.
And Elspeth wept on her bosom.
The daughter waved her father to the door with one hand.
"She will tell me easier!" she said.
And straightway the old man went out into the dark.
*******
It did not take long to tell, with Allan Syme lying so near to the gates of death. Almost in less time than it needs to write it, Elspeth was arrayed, so far at least as outer seeming went, in the garments of her sex. A basket was filled with the necessities which were kept ready for such an emergency in every house.
"Come, father," the loving wife cried at the door; "I will tell you as we gang!"
And before she had won third way through her story, John Allanson had taken Elspeth's hand in his.
"My bairn! my bairn!" he said.
In this manner Elspeth came the second time to the Manse of Allan Syme.
*******
But the third time was as the mistress thereof. For she and the elder's daughter nursed Allan Syme through into safety. For the very day that Allan was stricken, a great rain fell and a great wind blew. The birds came back to the gardens of Cairn Edward, and the plague lifted. In time, too, Dr. Stuart submitted with severe grace to that which he could not help.
"Indeed, it was all my fault, father," Elspeth said; "I made Allan come back by the stile. I had made up my mind that he should. I knew he would kiss me there!"
"Then I can only hope," answered her father, severely, lifting up his gold-knobbed cane and shaking it at her to emphasise his point, "that by this time your husband has learned the secret of making you obey him. It is more than ever your father did!"