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CHAPTER VII.

THE KIRK.

I HAVE noticed that the parochial institutions in Scottish parishes are often placed, not in the centre, or near it, but as far off from that as a site could be found. Accident had perhaps little to do with this allocation of schools and churches out of the way. Either the wisdom of our ancestors placed the ecclesiastical and educational authorities in fat and pleasant places, although their sheltered nooks might be a little inconvenient for the people, or the industry of their occupants had improved the soil to some purpose. Both causes may have helped to localise these institutions where, and to make them what, they are. Kirkhowe was a manifest example of the geographical error; being so nearly out of itself, so to speak, since it was the moral centre of a large district, that it looked very much like a small candle at the far end, burning away to give light in a large room. A stone could have been thrown, and no doubt often was thrown, out of the "kirkyard" into another parish, and yet our own land stretched for good ten miles of howe and hills, and sometimes glens, away in three directions. The parishioners generally came only to know our grief in the morning that, though it was fair and sunny itself, was yet so dark and gloomy in its presence and its remembrances to us, as they gathered to the Kirk from all the bounds of the parish. And although it was not to be expected that they had all the same cause to be sorrowful that belonged to us, who, in a manner, were the near neighbours of the drowned lady, yet her sweet face was familiar to them all; for she had kept the minister's seat during many years, and her good deeds and winning ways had often carried light beneath the shadows of the great Cairndhu itself. Besides, all the children loved her very much, and childhood is so guileless often, and especially in our country parts, that it tells all the good done to its “inferest." And let me say that there is a great and greatly neglected "childhood's" interest in all places, greater, by more than we can count, than all the landed interests, and shipping interests, and the money interests, of which we hear so much. Gratitude is not easily won out of the neglected and the old. Sorrow hardens the heart sometimes, as men can harden steel by heat applied to it in one way; but

the young are always grateful-until, of course, they have gathered up with the ways of the world; but the children of Kirkhowe were young for many more years of their lives than those of some large cities. For ours was then a secluded place, and we knew little more than we read of strange people, for they came seldom among us. Thus it was that the people of the parish, as they stood in little knots, above their graves,—for they had a way not unlike Abraham's, of calling the place where they had laid their dead their own graves; and new comers never opend the grave of a family to place another inmate in the row-all spoke of only one sore sorrow, and most of all the little children, like myself, and some very old persons, who had known the kindness of the lady who lay cold and silent in the manse hard by, were dejected like, and wept sore. It was an ominous beginning of the week, for on no Sabbath in our recollection, or records, as I afterwards learned, save that day, for centuries it might be, had there been no bell heard in Kirkhowe. The minister's man acted as beadle ever after William Faulds became afflicted by rheumatic pains, and he was to be excused for forgetting the bell that day, because, although a hard man, as we thought, and wearing up among many years, yet, like his master, he was kindly below the rind; and he had been so proud concerning Blinkbonnie, and the friends of his young mistress that were to stop there, and ten years had given him a sort of claim and dependence upon Miss Nancy; and, altogether I never found out that one could dissect, like a doctor cutting a subject, all the causes and means by which some people gain the affections of those whom they often meet-even of those who may not be to the rest of the world more than cold and dour like.

As the forenoon grew near to noon, it was said that there could be no services in the usual way, for the minister was so depressed that he could not get through them, and while David Petrie was a qualified man, according to the uses of the Kirk, yet he had long abandoned any thought of preaching and presentation, and moreover, was also in the midst of a great trouble, while Mr. Green was only a young man and learning, and we were not near any ecclesiastical help. At the time it seemed to me very strange, and helped perhaps to keep the day fixed in my recollection, that the common services were thus interrupted. After some сод

THE KIRK.

sultation of the elders, among whom was old Samuel Coutts from the Upper Burn, a great farm, but cold and full of moss, on the mountain side, who seldom came so far down the country as Kirkhowe, except on Sabbaths, and therefore was not at the consultation in Dr. More's, before mentioned, but who was a useful man in the Highland portion of the parish, possessed of great experience, and an acquaintance with the Bible, that made his words like those of the Patriarchs in other lands and old times; whom he also resembled, in being the keeper of many sheep and great herds of cattle the people gathered into their places in the old Kirk. John Dow, who was our precentor then, had, according to my recollection, a clear full voice in his ordinary services, but it seemed sadly broken and wavering as he sung that ninetieth psalm which has so often been sung, like the forty-sixth, by our Scotch congregations in days of mourning. And although I never before or after had any particular predilection for Mr. Petrie's prayers, which might usually have been read from a book, being word for word so well repeated that those who heard him once could ever after keep rather before him; yet he threw us all out at this time, and went clean away from the ordinary school form of daily bread and suitable weather-for the hard rock of formality had been smitten by the rod, and the sorrows of a woeful heart gushed forth. I always thought kinder of Mr. Petrie from that day on. Then Dr. More, who was not connected officially with the congregation, except as one of its members, but being a gentleman and well liked, was not ready to be put out in speaking to people nearly all of whom he could have called by their names, went up to the centre of the church and began to tell what had happened; but they all knew by that time, and he made very little progress, except in saying that the minister was downcast, and it was easy to see that the doctor was nearly as downcast himself; especially when he said that the young lady's father was on the wide, wide waters, sailing home from a far country that he himself had come from, and expecting his daughter, who had been his only living child, to cheer the few years that were yet to come of a long life. This was not clearly known to us before, and it made many old folks sad to think of the aged gentleman who was rejoicing at that hour with every wave that carried him on to home, and, as he hoped, to joy; while they all knew that he was only coming to a grave. For what was Blinkbonnie, or all his wealth, to him when compared to this only hope of his life who was so soon to be hidden from us all and never more to be seen by him. So Dr. More could not go on with his statement, and it is trying to see an old man in deep grief. John Dow sung another psalm, as he would have done before the sermon on a common Sabbath day, and then Mr. Smith read to us the first chapter in the first epistle of Peter, wherein he saith "For all flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth

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and the flower thereof fadeth away; but the word of the Lord endureth for ever." Although the farmer of the Racketts was the best read man among those who had to labour for their living in our parish, or anywhere thereabouts, yet he was withal a modest quiet man, who had not much to say except when forced to it in the way of what he deemed duty-neither did he say much at this time, only what he did say, and the verses that he had read, made me long after look with a new interest at the springing flowers and the waving grass, as memorials to man of his exceeding frailty, and his sure removal ere long from the place that knows him now. Samuel Coutts was then a very old man. Once he must have been endowed with amazing strength, but that would have been at its prime near the " three sevens" of which very old people spoke. Still, though he had reached fourscore years, or nearly, he could walk nine miles in a morning, and back at night, and never took the cart and pony to help him on the road, unless when the gudewife of the Upper Burn was able to accompany him. He had lived upon his hill farm for now nearly sixty years, and in the parish during all his lifetime; and he could speak to nearly every person in it of their grandfather; and so he was more respected than wealthier, or even more learned men, for he was better read in his Bible than any other book; but it seems, somehow, to impart a certain dignity of mind to those who read it much. A number of poor cottages had gathered about the Upper Burn, and when the winter was hard the people all collected at the farmhouse on the Sabbaths, and the old elder read the Bible to them, and had worship with them; and, according to the views that I afterwards learned in life, it might be that the prayers offered up from this house among the heather, were more effective than many others chaunted or read in great cathedrals by men clothed in official raiment, such as seemeth in its form and colour to have originated rather at Constantinople or Rome than in Jerusalem. At any rate, everybody believed that they availed much, because they were, as we all judged, the effective fervent prayers of a righte ous man; so the whole people thought it seemly, indeed, that he said something before they separated. And the old man asked them to read with him in a part of the Bible not so often read as the New Testament and the historical books; however, that third chapter of Malachi, as read by this very old man, has passages that go right into the heart-for he was a wonderfully solemn reader of the Word; and he said something too of speaking often together, and how little was spoken amongst us that had any connexion with another world; and respecting jewels of this earth, valuable, but yet not immortal, and jewels that would be set in a framework of stars, to shine for evermore; and although only a child, I marvelled how old Samuel Coutts came to know all these things; and how easy he seemed to speak of death as one of those occurrences, like going to

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kirk or market, with which he was familiar, and also how he did not so much, he said, regret the removal that had taken place-seeing the Master's work had all been done and the servant was ready to be released—and how he spoke of going away soon himself, he could not doubt; and having at his age more interest in the upper than the lower life. Even so, perhaps, the uncommon style of his prayer struck me, for its words were very reverend; but those of a person who had no doubt whatever of all that he was saying-or all that he was seeking; or perhaps it was because he spoke more than any of the others, for the young children who had lost a gentle guide, that even He would guide them who never changed, and so they also might be ready; and then when John Dow had sung a hymn that closes very hopefully

A few short years of evil past,

We reach that happy shore,
Where death-divided friends at last
Shall meet to part no more.

they all went to their homes, some far away, and in an hour's time we were left to ourselves; and there were no classes that afternoon-neither was the day school gathered together all that week; and yet there was no noise as of children at their play, but everybody seemed out of their usual way-for although we were accustomed to death, since all the funerals of a large parish came to us, yet accidents were not common there; so even the young went sorrowfully from place to place, and I remember going often up to Widow Robb, and bringing Johnnie down by the burn to look up at the dull windows, thinking it possible that she might not be far away, and remembering my charge to be kind to Johnnie Robb. Since then it has often struck me that our formal worship, with everything so starched and settled like, may not be the best way after all. At least I recollect more of what was said that Sunday in the kirk, than I do of any other service, before or since.

CHAPTER VIII. THE GRAVE.

A GREAT grief is softened by many engagements, and thus it comes to be good for afflicted people that they have often to be busy. Work is a powerful agent in mellowing and touching down sorrow. This may have been one reason why poor Mrs. More did everything connected with the funeral that a woman could do, and directed every thing else; and was allowed to take her own way, in some respects, at least in our quarter. A grave was dug by William Fauld's sons, near to the centre of the south side of the kirk close to the wall, next to the spot where the manse family were buried, so far as they had been carried to their long home, and when that was done masons came from the town, and built it round with bricks, which was a strange plan in our place. Mr. Cairns,

who was a lawyer in the town, came and went as if he had been giving directions, but Mrs. More managed, notwithstanding. Then, when Thursday came, the children who were particularly in her classes were told to come up to the manse, just after all the young and married women had been there-for it was a common custom in deaths through all that quarter, that the female friends of a bereaved family went to see the corpse a day or two before the burial, and this was called the chesting. A very great number of female visitors, more or less in mourning, had been at the manse that day, and they were all sad enough, for any heart would have been sore to think of such an early broken flower. The children, who, except a few friends, knew her best, were very willing to go there, though they were not, more than other children, ready to go into the presence of death, which has a solemn power over the old, but particularly the young. The room was very gloomy, but very grand; and yet I heard old people say that the outer coffin was plain, because she would not have liked it to be other than plain. It did not seem to us that there was much change on that face, so still like-only some of us thought it smiled; but when you look long at anything through tears, the eyes are half blinded, and in a sort of maze, so that the sight is not to be trusted. There were buds of roses round the coffin that would never have blossoms, for the spring was late, and we had only buds on the rose bushes then. And there were bunches of rosemary out of the manse garden, that keep green, they say, for many years, in the grave, and are long of falling into dust. The little watch and the little picture were placed upon the grave clothes-I noticed that the watch did not tick any then, as if it too had been dead. Beside them lay the Bible, which we all knew well, for none of us had ever seen so pretty a book. We staid a long while there, till the daylight was nearly away; and Mrs. More spoke much to us, but she was so sad that she made us all sadder, until before we left the room, she told us that the dead perhaps looked down upon the living, and even perhaps, it might be, cared for them in ways all hidden from us; only if we loved not Him whom they loved, if they were with the good angels, then they could not care for us; but somehow we forgot nearly all that was said, owing to the dead face bringing up the past days to us, only it was something that altogether made me think of the dead, not as still and at rest, but being here and there, and seeing many things; and though I was never able to comprehend, like some people whom I have met, great mys teries, yet, as we tottered down the staircase, and out through the long passage, and down the dark walk to the burn, none of us were afraid, as we would have been in any other case. And Saturday came at last-with it the burial-and there came many carriages, although there were only a few hundred yards to pass. Among others, Mr. Cochrane had come, they said, all the long way

THE STRANGERS.

from England to be there. It might have been that he came so far because Mr. Cairns had bought Blinkbonnie with money sent to Miss Rose by her father, rather than because she had been ever good and kind in the village. We heard old people speaking that way, for years do not sometimes make men or women free from being "evilthoughted."

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the kirkyard; but they were reverently tended, and watched, and watered by the young things, and only any weed that appeared was pulled out, until they grew very strong, and in the winter frosts they were covered up. For a long time it was the only flower grave there. But at last some people sought cuttings, and then others got more cut, tings, only for use in the kirkyard, until many more graves had been covered with them, and it seems as if Miss Nancy's flowers have spread over many families; neither is it certain that her goodnesses while she lived did not also spread into a number of hearts in some of the families that knew her well, although they might not have flowered at once, being transplanted; for they who are learned say that the bad or good actions of human beings are immortal, like themselves, and go on evermore in swirls, influencing other persons' lives through all time,

When the time came, many young women preceded the coffin from the manse, and they were dressed in white, which looked strange to us; but it was a notion of Mrs. More's, and they were all willing that she should take her way in her grief. But all these things passed by, and are of no value whatever when the grave is closing up; and after all that was over, and the coffin hidden, with its "Aged, 21 Years," a feeling of utter loneliness crept over my mind, just as if is was useless to look up any more to the windows. In our country at that time the dead were covered with sods over the ground, and the dew descended, and the rain fell, and the sun shone, until the grasses grew, and the daisies amongst them blossomed-and thus the dust was left with the dust and the elements, without any artificial gardening. A new way was introduced in this grave which seemed very comely. Sharp-edged stones were set around its breadth and length, and a deep coating of soil was placed over the clay-which was raked and smoothed like a garden plot. Towards night-for little stars were shining out, and as I passed the kirkyard wall, I was wondering if they were as large as Mr. Green had said, and if they were heavens made to hold good people in, and if Nancy Rose were there or here, I looked over to the grave, and two or three persons were there, and one of them was a lady. I was in no manner afraid, although it was the gloamin' hour; but thinking that they might be strangers, not know-years. ing who lay there, I climbed the wall and got up through the many stones to the place. But they were not strangers-only the minister himself and his man and Mrs. More, and being ashamed to disturb them, I was wearing away, when they heard my foot somehow, and asked me back to hold a bush. Thus it came that I helped to plant the holly bush, which was said to have white spots on its leaves ever since the flight into Egypt; and we planted it at the foot, and two more bushes at the top, one was white, and the other a moss rose and red, at each corner at the top-so long ago is it that they have met over the marble stone years since. It was then also that they planted some carnations that she had tended through the winter, and it was quite dark before that was over, so that I might weep and not be ashamed, as nobody could see. Many little sprigs of thyme-for we planted thyme too in the ground, have sprung there since then-for the flowers prospered, and the holly bush is very large now; but those who planted them all sleep near that same spot, except that one is left. The flowers might all have been destroyed, for all the school got into

CHAPTER IX.

THE STRANGERS.

THE house inhabited by the Miss Douglasses was a long building of one flat, that upon the ground, as if two or three cottages had been turned into one; and behind it stretched a long piece of ground, which once had been kept well, but grew in latter years very ragged, not unlike a jungle of goosebury bushes, in some spots. The house had a dull, and the garden a disconsolate, appearance. The windows had shutters on the outside, and they were never closed, either because a hinge was broken, or the boards would scarcely keep together. The doors, for there were two of them, could not have been painted for many long The walls were brown with dust, or green in some places with damp. The interior of the house was comfortless, like the exterior, so far as I had ever seen it, till that year; but my knowledge was confined to the kitchen. The two sisters did all their own work, and it did not seem that they ever did anything else. Their father once held a large farm in the parish, and the lease expired with his life, according to a mode of tenure then common. The family was a numerous one, but had been scattered over the earth, with the exception of two of the sisters, who took up their abode in the long narrow cottages, which might have been, for length, a house, flanked by a barn and a byre, an arrangement very common even then; and they, as it were, maintained the memory in the parish of those who once had formed one of its leading families. It was by no means likely that they would pass out of it, or make any change in their name, for they were both at middle life, and there they remained during all my acquaintance with them, while they were neither remarkably well favoured, nor reputed to be rich, but otherwise. Moreover, they were very close persons, and not gifted with amiable tempers,

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according to the common report, although, from various little circumstances, I was not a sufferer on that account, having full permission to wander through the wilderness. Suddenly a change came over the house and land. The former was completely revolutionised by some painters and joiners from the town, in alliance with a thatcher from the country, while John Inglis, the gardener from Blinkbonnie, and two labourers, turned the ground by a week's labour into a tolerable garden.

The change was so rapid that the power of art over nature was seldom more clearly exhibited on our contracted scene. But the reason was anything but clear; to the discomfort of the neigh bours, who did not think themselves kindly treated if they were not acquainted with all that was done, and the reason for doing everything, in any home of the community. The mysteries connected with Miss Rose and Mrs. More were tolerated, because they were above the common run; but it was intolerable of the Douglasses, who were little better than the commonalty, to have secrets. Persevering busybodies even asked Mrs. Grey to tea, or looked into her as they were passing, just when the letters were expected; but although she was the best natured of post-mistresses, yet she could only say that a few more letters had come of late than were usual, and that was of little use to know, for the Miss Douglasses had an uncommon number of letters in those days of dear postage. Then, when the house had all been re-decorated outside and in, and the shutters would close, and were of uniform green with the doors, and the chief door had received a knocker, jet black, japanned, and metal on its front, with a scraper at its side, and the walls sparkled in the sun, being all "harled" with fresh lime and sand-and the windows had curtains: new furniture came in two carts, and a servant came before them, remained after them, and took up her abode there. It was unfortunate for us that we were rather more intimate than others with these provoking sisters, who would neither tell whether they were to be married, or had fallen heirs to a fortune, nor what all these changes were done for; because we were suspected of knowing more than we did know, and that was no more than the plain facts, perceptible to any perThe strange servant was the subject of interrogatory by everybody, but she was made for the place. She came from the south-from the far south. Did she come from Edinburgh? she had been there, but that was not far. she related to the Miss Douglasses? She was their servant. Who more were to stop in the house? How should she know that? And she baffled and turned the sharpest practitioners, and they were at fault.

son.

Yes,

Was

so

A few weeks after all these things were completed, and when the public curiosity had settled down to be disappointed, and without any notice or warning, upon a forenoon, two young persons, a brother and a sister as afterwards turned out to be the case, were found very leisurely amusing

themselves in the garden, and by-and-by their mother appeared; and thus the improvements of the long house were explained satisfactorily. The two young Ferries were then ten and twelve years old. They came to the school, and in due course formed part of the young villagehood. Their mother was well-remembered, for she had once been a Miss Douglass, but settled very far away in an English town. Their father was in some way connected with mercantile business; but, of course, we did not understand these things, except inasmuch as they were taught, like navigation or any other science, by Mr. Petrie, through a large book on the subject, of which I only remember that the book-keeping by double-entry seemed to involve immense transactions, and always attended by great profit or loss, for the concoctor seemed never to be satisfied with such small results as I have since found to be usual in the commonplace world.

Mr. Ferrie had been induced to leave his business and home for some appointment round Cape Horn. It was, I believe, in Valparaiso. But our old people had only two foreign parts out of Europe-America, and the Indies-for they never consulted the globes and maps that had been provided for us at the school, I need hardly say by whom. Mr. Ferrie, no doubt, expected to earn a fortune for his two children in few years; and for a time they were cast down at leaving him, by which I have since thought that he may have been a kindly man, who left not his own country without many twinges of the heart, going out, as he did too, from a bien house to be alone in a strange land. They often spoke of him for more than a year after they took up their abode at Kirkhowe; but young people forget the absent in course; and, I dare say, that the Valparaiso merchant was remembered by them before his death, chiefly on account of his letters. They lived there without much change for nearly seven years. The fortune was gained, but he who sought it died in its winning. If he went to seek it for their sakes, he never saw them in the enjoyment of his labours. This weary way of anticipating is not, however, consistent with the proper manufacture of tales. They were then good and nice-tempered children, or rather more than children, for they were both well over my age. They had more money than any of their play-fellows in the village, even when the Brocks' came down; but ther aunts looked well to their expenditure; only their books, and even their toys, became in a way common property.

The Ferries had nothing very particular in their appearance. They were sallow and weakly when they came there; but in after years Miss Ferrie became a beauty in the parish; and her brother, who was the younger of the two, grew famous in feats of agility and strength. Mrs. Ferrie was really younger than either of her sisters, as many persons knew well-although they affected to think her older; but that was one of

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