A Modern Crusader

Front matter

[All Rights Reserved] BY SOPHIE F. F. VEITCH K AUTHOR OF " MARGARET DRUMMOND, MILLIONAIRE," ETC. LONDON ADAM & CHARLES BLACK CONTENTS CHAP. PACE I. THE NEW MINISTER . . . , .7 II. THE UTILITY OF SPASMS . . . .21 III. QUESTIONABLE PARISHIONERS . . -36 IV. A MODERATE DRINKER . . . .48 V. A LOST HAT . . . . . -63 VI. THAT BLESSED WORD "HYSTERIA" . . -77 VII. AN UNWELCOME SUMMONS . . . -92 VIII. MIST-WREATHS . . . . . 106 IX. SUSPICIONS . . . . . .122 X. IMPROVING THE OCCASION . . . 1 36 XI. A CATASTROPHE . . . . 151 XII. REVELATIONS ...... 165 XIII. ANXIETY . . . . . . iSl XIV. CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT . . . I96 XV. AN APPROPRIATE DISCOURSE. . . .211 XVI. A PUZZLE ...... 227 XVII. CLOUDS ...... 242 XVIII. AN EXPLOSION ..... 256 XIX. A WARNING ...... 272 CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE XX. SHREDS OF TWEED ..... 287 XXI.

A GLIMPSE OF THE PAST .... 302 XXII. AN ULTIMATUM ..... 318 XXIII. FURTHER DISCLOSURES .... 334 XXIV. RUNNING THE HAZARD .... 352 XXV. CROSS PURPOSES ..... 367 XXVI. A PIECE OF WIRE NETTING . . . 382 XXVII. A SPLENDID INHERITANCE .... 397 XXVI 1 1. LOST AND WON .....

Chapter I The New Minister

" Eh, mither, yonder's a machine comin' up the glen, wi' a hantle boxes an' things outside. I doubt it'll just be the minister." " Mercy me ! " exclaimed in consternation Mrs. Macneil, postmistress and keeper of the general emporium of the village of Glendarff, who was to be honoured by being temporarily the new minister's landlady, "was ever the like? Why, the train canna have been mair than a quarter of an hour late. On this o' a' days to be sae near her time, when I'm behindhand wi' things ! Rin, lassie, an' set out the tea. Ye'se find a clean cloth in the sittin'-room press. Never heed the sheets, woman. I'll see to them by an' by. If he does gang to his room before tea, he'll no' find out there are nane on the bed. I'm just through wi' the scones, an' I'll have the kettle on in a minute.

Eh, ye feckless taupie, turn yon scones ! Can ye no' see they're burnin'? That'll do. Now, awa' an' set out the tea. He canna be here for a wee while yet. It's a sair brae for a heavy machine." The calculation respecting the date of the minister's arrival was not a random guess. The village of Glendarff lay beyond the summit of the " sair brae " in question, and at a lower level, so the actual ascent was not within its ken. But the windings of the glen allowed to certain houses, of which Mrs. Macneil's was one, a glimpse of about a hundred yards of the road at a considerable distance. At that point alone could her daughter have seen the fly. Mrs. Macneil was therefore accurately informed how far off the minister was at the moment. Mary Macneil was an active lassie, and her mother's hands moved about as fast as her tongue.

By their united efforts the surface, at least, of things was all in order by the time the panting horse stopped right gladly at the door; and Mrs. Macneil, with a smiling countenance and spotless apron, was standing on the threshold to welcome her lodger. " Ye're in gude time the night, sir," she said. " I hope ye've made a comfortable journey ? " "Thank you, yes. But do you call it good time ? The train was a quarter of an hour late." " Oh yes, sir. She a' that, nae doubt. But then we count that extra gude time, ye ken. Forty minutes late is mair like the thing gener ally. Never heed a' thae things, sir. My man's only just down the garden; he'll be here this minute, an' help the driver wi' them. Tea's just ready. But ye'll maybe like to gang to yer bed room first ? " The minister assented, and was conducted up stairs to a fairly comfortable bedroom.

Then, after a brief period of confusion, scuffling of feet, bumping of boxes, and running up and down stairs, to ascertain what was to be brought up, what left below, quietness settled down upon the house, and a fragrant odour of ham and eggs, slowly spreading through its somewhat limited dimensions, penetrated at length into the bed room, where the minister, after freeing himself from the soil and dust of a summer day's journey, had fallen into a reverie, and forcibly recalled to him the fact that he had eaten nothing since a rather early breakfast. Descending the stairs, he entered the sitting-room almost in company with the ham and eggs, and proceeded to make up for his long fast. It was perhaps as well for his comfort that the ham and eggs, the hot scones, the toast, and Mr. Macneil's impending supper kept his landlady pretty closely tied to the kitchen, for the chance of getting first word with the new minister, and endeavouring, at least, to induce him to regard various subjects from her point of view, was not a prospect calculated to exercise a subduing in fluence on her loquacity.

As it was, being not slow in observation of suggestive trifles, he made a mental note of a ceaseless murmur from the direction of the kitchen. Mrs. Macneil was in truth only biding her time. Mr. Macneil was provided with his supper rather more promptly than usual, her cooking apron was replaced by a smart embroidered one, and her hands washed, some time before the sitting-room bell rang. " Just bide where ye are, Mary," she said to her daughter. "It's but fittin' I wad see to the minister mysel' this first night, an' hear just what he may wish." Disappointment awaited her. In the doorway of the sitting-room the minister met her. " I am going up to the manse, Mrs. Macneil," he said. " I appointed Dempster to meet me there at seven o'clock. I do not know exactly how long I may be absent ; but if you will put a lamp and a bed room candle in the sitting-room, I shall want nothing more to-night."

He spoke with a quiet decision of tone and manner not inducive of efforts to detain him. Mrs. Macneil had hardly time to say, " Very well, sir," before his hat was on, and he was stepping out on to the road. She captured the teapot and toast-rack, and returned to the kitchen in a critical mood, which had an undoubted trend towards hostility. " He's a braw lad," said Mr. Macneil, mentally contemplating the barely twenty - five-yearold minister from the standing-point of sixty years of life. "That's as may be," replied his wife senten tiously. " But to my thinkin' he's ower young to want to settle himsel' in a lanesome place like this. Just a nice quiet bit for a middle-aged man, or one not ower strong. Young men should bide where the work's heavier. I doubt he's a bit lazy." " He's a gran' preacher," said Mr. Macneil.

" Oh, of course," retorted his wife, whose mood was clearly contradictory. " It's aye the new broom's the best. Maybe in a while ye'll be findin' out he doesna preach ony better than the lave. To my mind, he'll never be the man auld Dr. Simpson was. Now, Mary, awa' an' fetch the tea dishes, an' then ye can tak' up these sheets an' mak' up the bed, an' see ye pit the towels straight, an' tidy up the room." The newly elected minister of Glendarff, walking slowly towards the manse under the vigilant scrutiny of a far larger number of eyes than he at all suspected, was a square-shouldered, compactly built man, rather over the middle height, with well cut features, and a strong, resolute face. Critics less momentarily captious than Mrs. Macneil might have marvelled that a man of his age, carrying about him all the signs of both physical and mental energy, should care to bury himself in a lonely country parish.

But the marvel was, after all, but another word for ignorance. It faded away the moment all the facts were known. Arthur Reid was the only son of a Glasgow solicitor, a man possessed of a considerable share of professional ability, and a great deal of sound common sense, but sadly to seek in the domain of character. He possessed a good deal of that lazy good - nature which is often the accompani ment of a thoroughly selfish disposition, but he had probably never in his life felt the stirring of a really noble, lofty sentiment. His wife was English by birth, though a dweller in Scotland from early childhood, and she was of a type more common south than north of the Tweed. She was a clever, intelligent woman, though not singularly gifted intellectually; but in character she was as noble as her husband was commonplace.

Generous, ardent, and enthusiastic, and keenly sensitive to every vibration of the moral and spiritual atmosphere around her, she was pretty safely guaranteed against the enjoyment of any perilous amount of happiness in this world. Her friends rejoiced hugely over her most fortunate marriage. Cecil was so romantic, and deficient in ballast, that it was impossible to foresee what she might not have done had she remained wholly independent of external control. She might even have gone the length of imitating a certain ex ample set nigh on two thousand years ago by the blue waters of Galilee, and sacrificed everything that could contribute to the rational enjoyment of life, in order to minister to suffering humanity. The controlling influence of Robert Reid was just what was required to keep her firm in the paths of sound common sense, and judicious recognition of the claims of suffering humanity, as coincident only with what might be regarded as absolute superfluity of income.

Certainly after her marriage she became much quieter and more self-controlled than formerly ; but one who made her acquaint ance some years after that auspicious event averred he had never seen in any woman eyes so touch ingly wistful an expression. Arthur Reid, born several years after the marriage, was the only child of his parents, and the cause of a mighty hubbub among the various branches of that prolific family, when the intelligence burst upon them that he was to be named Arthur. Arthur, indeed ! This was one of Cecil's absurd whims, and really the extent to which Robert gave in to them was quite ridiculous. When had the Reids been known to depart from the time - honoured Scottish custom that every first-born son, in each house, should bear the name of the paternal grandfather ? Of course the child ought to be named Robert, and add yet another to the already multitudinous host of Roberts quite lately the cause of a terrible family quarrel.

This Robert had opened some letters intended for that Robert. He said it was a mistake ; but his wife had retailed some of that Robert's private affairs to the wife of yet another Robert. She forthwith declared war upon sundry other Roberts respecting some cutting remarks in some of these letters on " our cousin Robert," which she declared were aimed at her husband. Thereupon that Robert turned viciously on this Robert, and asserted his belief the initiatory blunder had been no blunder at all, but an act of deliberate treachery. Fearful had been the din of battle, but never had man or woman dared the attempt to disentangle the various Roberts mixed up in the fray. Cecil Reid had taken the lesson to heart, and even her hus band's allegiance to the time-honoured custom had been shaken. He never dared to let his relations know his English wife had termed it a ridiculous nuisance.

But he stoutly insisted his son should bear what name she pleased ; gladly, perhaps, casting on her the odium of this heinous inno vation. So Arthur the boy was named, and his mother, with a strange light in her eyes, would sometimes call the chubby, sturdy infant her " blameless king," — whereat outraged orthodoxy and good sense again took umbrage. Did not the blessed Scrip tures declare we were all shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin ? Who could be blameless ? And what chance had Robert's son of ever being a king? Cecil was just perfectly ridiculous, really, it would seem, off her head. The boy had been a wild romp of a child, a sturdy, mischievous boy, but, as his father boasted, never mean or under hand, and never caught telling a lie. It was not until after a somewhat uproarious term or two at the university that he suddenly announced his wish to be a minister.

" All right," said his father ; " please yourself. Had there been half a dozen of you, I might have felt it my duty to suggest a profession on which you can live, instead of one on which you only starve. But as it is, you will have fortune enough of your own to render it immaterial." Vain boast ! Even before the boy was old enough to take orders, people had begun to remark that Mr. Reid was ageing very fast, and looked very careworn ; and soon after Arthur had been ordained as assistant in a crowded town parish, his father's sudden death brought to light the fact that he had been for some years struggling on the verge of bankruptcy, dragged down by the failure of commercial enterprises with which he had been connected. Arthur faced the discovery bravely enough. " Thank God there is enough to clear off all outstanding debts," he said ; " and I can take good care of myself.

If only my mother had a little larger income, I should not trouble myself." Mrs. Reid's own little fortune was, how ever, sufficient to keep her in tolerable comfort for the first year or two of her widowhood. But then an internal complaint developed itself, not incon sistent with some years of life, but incurable, and rendering her a partially helpless invalid. Under these altered circumstances her narrow income was wholly insufficient. Her son must do something more than maintain himself. It was while he was anxiously revolving the course demanded of him by this sudden change in his circumstances, that friends cognisant of all the facts urged him strongly to come forward as a candidate for the vacant living of Glendarff, the stipend of which was rendered by the presence of minerals on the glebe a rather better one than usual.

Some local circumstances also they thought were in his favour. He at once sought the minister to whom he was assistant, and announced his intention of trying for the vacancy. " Well, Mr. Reid, I shall be very sorry, I am sure, to lose your help," said his senior. " Your preaching has been very acceptable, and your activity and energy in parish work most com mendable. But if you feel that the voice of the Lord is calling you to work in that particular corner of His vineyard, it is not for me to with stand your purpose." " I don't feel anything of the kind, sir. I simply have an invalid mother, much in need of comforts her income is not sufficient to provide, and I want the stipend of Glendarff in order that I may make up the deficiency." _ " And may not that be the nature of the Lord s call, my young friend?" asked the elder minister, with much suavity of manner.

" I don't look for special divine direction when the fulfilment of an obvious duty is in question. I prefer my reasons for trying for this post to be distinctly stated." " A very able young man that," said the minister afterwards to one of his elders, " and promises to be a very eloquent preacher, but I could wish he were a little more spiritual." " Yes, indeed, sir. I cannot but feel myself one sees more of gifts than of graces in that quarter." The sagacity of Arthur Reid's friends was justified by the event. He was the almost unanimously chosen candidate for the vacant living. There was no thought of his mother accompanying him to his new home, so lonely a spot was no suitable dwelling-place for her. He only waited to see her comfortably settled in the more luxurious quarters now at her command, and then set off to enter upon his new duties.

This lonely village of Glendarff, to which a sense of filial duty had consigned Arthur Reid at the very outset of his ministerial career, hidden in a shallow depression high among the rugged, precipitous hills which stood sentinel around it on every side, was, in actual fact, hardly so far removed from at least the fringes of modern civilisation as first appearances warranted one in supposing. The train, after leaving the little wayside station at which the minister had alighted, held on its course in a south-westerly direction along the seashore, until it reached the flourishing little watering-place of Netherport, some six miles farther along the coast. The minister's fly, mean time, after following for a short distance a level road running almost parallel with the railway, turned nearly due west up a wild, picturesque glen.

In its depths an impetuous mountain torrent brawled seawards with much foaming and fretting, over mossy stones and round great boulders of impeding rock. Through a thick copse of oak, hazel, and birch, with here and there a stately beech, a feathery larch, or a gnarled oak, towering high above the undergrowth, the road wound onwards and upwards for a distance of some four miles, until, having attained its greatest altitude, high above not only the brawling river, but its fringing copsewoods, it curved suddenly down a shallow incline, and became the main and only thoroughfare of Glen darff, street or road, according as it pleased the observer to concentrate his attention upon its urban characteristics of gutters, pumps, and sprawl ing children, or its rural ones of fragmentary hedges, and grassy margins, in the many gaps between the straggling houses.

Glendarff was, in a straight line, about as near to Netherport station as to that from which the minister had been driven ; but the direct road to Netherport was not available for anything supported on wheels. It was a rugged mountain 2 I *■ road, possible only for foot passengers or skilled riders, running nearly due south over the range of hills which intervened between Glendarff and the sea-coast. For about half a mile, at its highest level, it was a strange, weird scene, which visitors to Netherport often climbed the hill with grief and dolour in order to visit. It there passed through a sort of miniature canon, a rent in the rocks known as the Witches' Pass, where the frowning crags in places almost met overhead, and where twilight reigned even on a summer day. Entering the pass from the Glendarff side, it seemed to a stranger as though he were plunging into a blind alley, blocked at the farther end by a huge mass of rock.

Only on reaching the very point where all farther progress seemed impossible did he perceive that a sharp turn to the right enabled him to round this projecting mass, and step out in a moment on to the southern slope of the range. And what a prospect then opened out before him ! An illimitable ex panse of sky, seeming in the far distance to mingle with an immeasurable extent of sea, all flecked with white wings, or streaked with thin black streaks, the legacy of coasting steamers. Immedi ately below lay the town of Netherport, stretching two straggling arms of villas on each side along the shore. Beyond both, to right and left, was spread out a variegated expanse of pastoral scenery. The village of Glendarff would probably have been neither where nor what it was but for the existence of a seam of coal, rendered by the near neighbourhood of Netherport profitable enough to be worth working.

This coal, extending under the glebe, gave the living its increased value. The population was for the most part composed of colliers, and the condition of church, manse, and schools was satisfactory. Of course there was a public-house, and it bore the ill-omened name of The Miner's Rest. This public-house was a bone of contention. The total abstainers of Glendarff, a body more combative than numerous, stoutly maintained no such place was needed in the village. The majority did not much trouble themselves about this opinion, so long as no effort was made to deprive them of the consolations of the house. They only retorted, with the irritating sarcasm of truth, that the total abstainers were themselves indirectly its most active upholders. There was in Netherport a Convalescent Home, conducted on the strictest total abstaining principles, with a hard and fast rule that instant expulsion should be the fate of whomsoever of its occupants should be caught consuming alcoholic drinks of any sort in a licensed house.

As a result, its inmates most undoubtedly did toil up assiduously to visit the Witches' Pass, and stroll down right joyously into Glendarff, to indemnify themselves at The Miner's Rest for their enforced abstinence, without the risk of discovery attending such fractures of rules and regulations in Netherport itself. George Duncan, the landlord of The Miner's Rest, it is true, expressed much indignation against the calumniators of the inmates of the Home, adding, in confidence, to his special cronies, " Can't the blooming idiots hold their tongues ? There's no telling what these whey-faced water-drinkers may take it into their heads to do if they are always getting this cast in their teeth. If they should set the Home people up to watching the place, I might lose a good half of my summer drawings."

Chapter II The Utility Of Spasms

The post-office was at one end of Glendarff; the church and manse stood near together on a rising ground a little behind the main road, very near to the other end. Thus Mr. Reid had to pass through nearly the whole length of the village in order to keep his appointment, and his progress presented features somewhat akin to those of a paddle steamer in smooth water. Before him all was tranquil repose, behind him was seething and turmoil. The windows and doors he was ap proaching were decorously unoccupied ; those he was leaving in his rear swarmed with eager forms and faces. Miners in various stages of cleansing from the results of their grimy occupation, women trim and tidy, or slatternly and half-clad, children with jam-besmeared faces, or with " pieces " in their hands, eagerly crowded to every available point of view in order to enjoy a good stare at the new minister.

All unobservant, Arthur Reid passed on his leisurely course. He was gifted, if the paradox may pass, with a most valuable negation — a total absence of all self-consciousness. It never occurred to him to think that people might be observing him, for on the only occasions when the fact was unmistakably thrust upon his notice — those on which he occupied the pulpit — he was too much absorbed in observing them to have any thought to bestow upon his own personality. He was arranging in his mind as he walked various questions he wished to ask the church officer. He was, indeed, even more absolutely without any knowledge of local circumstances than is usual in such cases. His one appearance in the church had so clearly placed him far ahead of all other candidates that the committee had gladly avoided all the difficulty and expense involved in another more limited contest, and he had never been near Glendarff again until the day of his induction, a few days previously to his final arrival, when he had had little time to make inquiries which on the occasion of his first visit it would have been a grave indiscretion on his part to assume that it was necessary for him to make.

The church officer met him at the manse door, and conducted him over the house, ready to descant freely upon its merits and demerits. But he found his opportunities limited. Where his own affairs were in question, the minister was short in speech, prompt in action, and Dempster gathered little food for future interesting discussions from this preliminary visit. Mr. Reid went rapidly through the rooms, asked a few questions with that irritating terseness which renders it difficult to avoid a direct answer, made sundry notes in a pocket-book, and then said — You have the key of the church ? " Yes, sir ; I've brought it." " Then let us go there at once, ere the light fails." As they entered the church Mr. Dempster made his first point. The moment they passed the threshold the minister removed his hat, and he said to himself, "Ane o' thae new-fangled men, I doubt.

Ower ta'en up wi' the externals o' religion." But if the minister respected the building, he did not respect its atmosphere, close, heavy, and evil-smelling. " Faugh ! " he said, as he stepped into it from the pure freshness of the summer evening air. " Are the windows ever opened ? " " Weel, sir, ye ken," pleaded the church officer, " that's a maist troublesome matter. Ye'd hardly credit the worry I've had about it. What wi' them that has nae hair, an' them that has weak chests, or caulds, or somethin', there's nae gettin' a window open onywhere wi'out a grumblin' ; an' I'll allow I've ta'en at last just to lettin' them alane." " I should think the congregation go to sleep a good deal during the service. Do they not?" Dempster thought he saw his opportunity for a neat and presumably useful compliment.

" I'll no' say but they have been a good bit used that way, sir ; but I doubt there'll be nae mair o' that now." The adroitly implied flattery seemed to miss its mark. " Yes, I hope there will be a change," said the minister. " The windows must be kept open all through the week. People would be more than human if they could keep awake in such an atmo sphere. Ah, I see there is a harmonium. It was not played the Sunday I was here," he added decisively. His ear was keen, and the psalmody of Glendarff had scored a very deep mark in his memory. "Oh no, sir. It hasna been played this year past." " How is that ? "Weel, sir, it was Miss Davidson used to play it." " Who is Miss Davidson ? The schoolmistress ? " "Oh no, sir. That's Miss Tomlinson — the schoolmaster's daughter. Miss Davidson's the laird's daughter.

Him that lives in the white house out by, under the fir wood yonder, at the foot o' the hill. He's only a sma' laird, ye ken, an' he's been a widower since ever she was a wee lassie. He was marriet on " — "Yes, yes," struck in the minister impolitely. ;' But why doesn't she play the harmonium now ? " " Weel, sir, ye see there was a bit o' a quarrel. There was by way o' bein' a choir, an' Dr. Munro, he's a fair gude singer, trained them a bit. They do say he's courtin' Miss Davidson. But then there was a niece o' Mr. Mackenzie's — ye'll mind Mr. Mackenzie, sir, him that's manager at the pits ? I think ye stappit ae nicht there, when ye cam' to preach." " Yes, I know him. "Weel, as I was sayin', his niece cam' frae E'nbra to stay wi' him, an' they do say she was daft about the doctor. Onyway, she was geyly set against Miss Davidson, an' said she didna play the instrument richtly ava.

Now, I'll no' gie in to that, sir. I'm a bit o' a musician mysel', though I'm no' gleg to boast o't. It ill becomes ony man to be soundin' his ain praises. But I'll tak' it on me to say, wi'out fear o' contradiction frae ony, that ken what they're talkin' about, that Miss Davidson's a fair gude player, for a young leddy that's no' had great advantages. But some stuck up lads an' lasses in the choir, wha couldna hae tellt a sharp frae a flat to save their lives, thought it a gran' thing to say the same as a leddy frae E'nbra, an' they set up their cheek, an' said they couldna sing to Miss Davidson's playing. Then, ae nicht, at the practising Sandy Sproat, the black smith's son, said somethin' vera ill-bred to her, an' Dr. Munro up and just kicket him out o' the church. An' there's been nae choir nor harmonium since."

The minister smiled grimly. " I see," he said ; " the old story. Love upsetting harmony." " Weel, not exactly that way, sir," replied Dempster, with the complacent smile of a man conscious of being quite at home with his subject. " The choir aye sang in unison, no' in harmony. They hadna got that far in their teaching." " Ah ! It was a case, then, of unison without unity. That would be a fine working illustration for a sermon some day, wouldn't it, Dempster?" He spoke with all becoming gravity, though the corners of his mouth were twitching. Dempster, not having the faintest idea what he meant, thought it well to take his stand on the sure ground of a complimentary reply of a vaguely general character. " I've no sort o' doubt, sir, ony illustration in your hands wad turn out maist strikin' an' suitable."