The Little Minister

at I hear of a traveller's asking lately at one of its doors how far he was from a village; yet Harvie throve once and was celebrated even in distant Thrums for its fish. Most of our weavers woul

oon he learned that his mother did not care to speak of Harvie, and perhaps he thought that she had forgotten it too, all save one scene to which his memory still guided him. When his mind wandered to Harvie, Gavin saw the door of his home open and a fisherman enter, who scratched his head and then said, "Your man's dr

of his own childhood. But it was neither. When Margaret, even after she came to Thrums, t

sten to him as readily as to the bell-man. Children scurried from him if his mood was savage, but to him at all other times, while me they merely disregarded. There was always a smell of the sea about him. He had a rolling gait, unless he was drunk, when he walked very straight, and before both sexes he boasted that any woman would take him for his beard alone. Of this beard he took prodigious care, though otherwise thinking little of his appearance, and I now see that he understood women better than I did, who had nevertheless reflected much about them. It cannot be said that

vie. He was blown off his smack in a storm, and could not reach the rope his

brother needed a housekeeper, and there mother and son remained until Gavin got his call to Thrums. During those seventeen years I lost knowledge of them as completely a

sked of a child was not, "Tell me your name," but "What are you to be?" and one child in every family replied, "A minister." He was set apart for the Church as doggedly as the shilling a week for the rent, and the rule held good though the family consisted of only one boy. From his earliest days Gavin thought he had been fashioned for the ministry as certainly as a spade for digging, and Margaret rejoiced and marv

n do Margaret's did better than most, and among the wealthy people who employed her-would that I could have the teaching of the sons of such as were good to her in those hard days!-her gentl

and the second to move the big Bible slightly, to show that the kirk officer, not having had a university education, could not be expected to know the very spot on which it ought to lie. Gavin saw that the minister joined in the singing more like one countenancing a seemly thing than because he needed it himself, and that he only sang a mouthful now and again after the congregation was in full pursuit of the precentor. It was noteworthy that the first prayer lasted longer than all the others, and that to read the intimations about the Bible-class and the collection elsewhere than immedia

mind. One afternoon Margaret was at home making a glen-garry for him out of a piece of carpet, and giving it a tartan edging, when the boy bounded in from school, crying, "Come quick, mother, and you'll see him." Margaret reached the door in time to see a stre

salt fish, which could then be got at two pence the pound if bought by the half- hundred weight, were his food. There was not always a good meal for two, yet when Gavin reached h

rself, mother?" he wou

fine supper,

had

atoes, for

dripp

ay be

e. The dripping hasn't bee

-care for drip

de the room fiercely,

ill I let myself be pampered with drippi

ly dinna care

my classes, and w

ungry. It's different

terly; "but, mother, I warn you that not another

ke her seat at the ta

avin retorted sternly,

throug

, but she Was only keeping pace with Gavin. When she was excited the Harvie words came back to her, as they come back to me. I have taught the English language all my life, and I try to write it, but everything I say in this book I first think to my

r her work at Gavin as he read or wrote or recited to himself the learning of the

of the dream that was common to both-a dream of a manse where Margaret was mistress and Gavin was called the minister

ow you've taken out of my bed,

ange them. I winna ha

t you sleep on chaff? Put up

n feathers. Do you mind, Gavin, you bought this pi

his mother sleeping happily, Gavin went back to his work. To save the expense of a lamp, he would put his bo

you not in your bed yet! What

ver come when I would be a minister, and you wou

ns to prepare, and every one of them was first preached to Margaret. How

I never heard. The s

should have me

soon to happen, or he would have made this prayer on his k

sermon, but do you think I'm preaching Christ? That is wh

Gavin; and mind, I dinna say

well I know it, and yet it

make us vain, but humble rather. Knowing what we are, the pride that shines in our mother's eyes as she looks at us is about

ppeared for the first time before his mother in his ministerial clothes. He wore the black silk hat, that was destined to become a

little, mother," h

icularly long man," Margaret said,

se days, which I have seen, and by comparing it with mine, I discovered that while he was showing himself to his mother in his black clothes, I was on my way back from Tilliedrum, where I had gone to buy a san

e room which had become so familiar that it seemed one of a family party of three had to be stripped, and many of its contents were sold. Among what were brought to Thrums was a little exercise book, in which Margaret had tried, unknown to Gavin, to teach herself writing and grammar, that she might b

aret said many times

think it has

yer of thankfulness," she whispered to him when

ister and his mother went on their knees, but, as it c

as he took her arm, "do yo