The Cairn Edward Kirk Militant

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Title:     The Cairn Edward Kirk Militant
Author: S. R. Crockett [More Titles by Crockett]

Out of the clinging valley mists I stray
Into the summer midnight clear and still,
And which the brighter is no man may say--
Whether the gold beyond the western hill

Where late the sun went down, or the faint tinge
Of lucent green, like sea wave's inner curve
Just ere it breaks, that gleams behind the fringe
Of eastern coast. So which doth most preserve

My wistful soul in hope and steadfastness
I know not--all that golden-memoried past
So sudden wonderful, when new life ran

First in my veins; or that clear hope, no less
Orient within me, for whose sake I cast
All meaner ends into these ground mists wan.

"We've gotten a new kind o' minister the noo at Cairn Edward," said my cousin, Andrew M'Quhirr, to me last Monday. I was down at the Mart, and had done some little business on the Hill. My cousin is a draper in the High Street. He could be a draper nowhere else in Cairn Edward, indeed; for nobody buys anything but in the High Street.

"Look, Saunders, there he is, gaun up the far side o' the causeway."

I looked out and saw a long-legged man in grey clothes going very fast, but no minister. I said to my cousin that the minister had surely gone into the "Blue Bell," which was not well becoming in a minister.

"Man, Saunders, where's yer een?--you that pretends to read Tammas Carlyle. D' ye think that the black coat mak's a minister? I micht hae a minister in the window gin it did!" said he, glancing at the disjaskit-looking wood figure he had bought at a sale of bankrupt stock in Glasgow, with "THIS STYLE OF SUIT, L2, 10s." printed on the breast of it. The lay figure was a new thing in Cairn Edward, and hardly counted to be in keeping with the respect for the second commandment which a deacon in the Kirk of the Martyrs ought to cultivate. The laddies used to send greenhorns into the shop for a "penny peep o' Deacon M'Quhirr's idol!" But I always maintained that, whatever command the image might break, it certainly did not break the second; for it was like nothing in the heavens above nor in the earth beneath, nor (so far as I kenned) in the waters under the earth. But my cousin said--

"Maybes no'; but it cost me three pound, and in my shop it'll stand till it has payed itsel'!" Which gives it a long lifetime in the little shop-window in the High Street.

This was my first sight of Angus Stark, the new minister of Martyrs' Kirk in Cairn Edward.

"He carries things wi' a high hand," said Andrew M'Quhirr, my cousin.

"That's the man ye need at the Martyrs' Kirk," said I; "ye've been spoiled owre lang wi' unstable Reubens that could in nowise excel."

"Weel, we're fixed noo, rarely. I may say that I mentioned his wearin' knickerbockers to him when he first cam', thinkin' that as a young man he micht no' ken the prejudices o' the pairish."

"And what said he, Andrew?" I asked. "Was he pitten aboot?"

"Wha? Him! Na, no' a hair. He juist said, in his heartsome, joky way, 'I'm no' in the habit o' consulting my congregation how I shall dress myself; but if you, Mr. M'Quhirr, will supply me with a black broadcloth suit free of charge, I'll see aboot wearin' it!' says he. So I said nae mair.

"But did you hear what Jess Loan, the scaffie's wife, said to him when he gaed in to bapteeze her bairn when he wasna in his blacks? She hummered a while, an' then she says, 'Maister Stark, I ken ye're an ordeened man, for I was there whan a' the ministers pat their han's on yer heid, an' you hunkerin' on the cushion--but I hae my feelin's!"

"'Your feelings, Mrs. Loan?' says the minister, thinking it was some interestin' case o' personal experience he was to hear.

"'Ay,' says Jess; 'if it was only as muckle as a white tie I wadna mind, but even a scaffie's wean wad be the better o' that muckle!'

"So Maister Stark said never a word, but he gaed his ways hame, pat on his blacks, brocht his goun an' bands aneath his airm, and there never was sic a christenin' in Cairn Edward as Jess Loan's bairn gat!"

"How does he draw wi' his fowk, Andra?" I asked, for the "Martyrs" were far from being used to work of this kind.

"Oh, verra weel," said the draper; "but he stoppit Tammas Affleck and John Peartree frae prayin' twenty meenits a-piece at the prayer-meetin'. 'The publican's prayer didna last twa ticks o' the clock, an' you're not likely to better that even in twenty meenits!' says he. It was thocht that they wad leave, but weel do they ken that nae ither kirk wad elect them elders, an' they're baith fell fond o' airin' their waistcoats at the plate.

"Some o' them was sore against him ridin' on a bicycle, till John Peartree's grandson coupit oot o' the cart on the day o' the Sabbath-schule trip, an' the minister had the doctor up in seventeen minutes by the clock. There was a great cry in the pairish because he rade doon on 't to assist Maister Forbes at the Pits wi' his communion ae Sabbath nicht. But, says the minister, when some o' the Session took it on them to tairge him for it, 'Gin I had driven, eyther man or beast wad hae lost their Sabbath rest. I tired nocht but my own legs,' says he. 'It helps me to get to the hoose of God, just like your Sunday boots. Come barefit to the kirk, and I'll consider the maitter again.'"

"That minister preaches the feck o' his best sermons oot o' the pulpit," said I, as I bade Andrew good-day and went back into the High Street, from which the folk were beginning to scatter. The farmers were yoking their gigs and mounting into them in varying degrees and angles of sobriety. So I took my way to the King's Arms, and got my beast into the shafts. Half a mile up the Dullarg road, who should I fall in with but "Drucken" Bourtree, the quarryman. He was walking as steady as the Cairn Edward policeman when the inspector is in the town. I took him up.

"Bourtree," says I, "I am prood to see ye."

"'Deed, Drumquhat, an' I'm prood to see mysel'. For thirty year I was drunk every Monday nicht, and that often atweenwhiles that it fair bate me to tell when ae spree feenished and the next began! But it's three month since I've seen the thick end o' a tumbler. It's fac' as death!"

"And what began a' this, Bourtree?" said I.

"Juist a fecht wi' M'Kelvie, the sweep, that ca's himsel' a pugilist!"

"A fecht made ye a sober man, Bourtree!--hoo in the creation was that?"

"It was this way, Drumquhat. M'Kelvie, a rank Tipperairy Micky, wi' a nose on him like a danger-signal"--here Bourtree glanced down at his own, which had hardly yet had time to bleach--"me an' M'Kelvie had been drinkin' verra britherly in the Blue Bell till M'Kelvie got fechtin' drunk, an' misca'ed me for a hungry Gallowa' Scot, an' nae doot I gaed into the particulars o' his ain birth an' yeddication. In twa or three minutes we had oor coats aff and were fechtin' wi' the bluid rinnin' on to the verra street.

"The fowk made a ring, but nane dared bid us to stop. Some cried, 'Fetch the polis!' But little we cared for that, for we kenned brawly that the polisman had gane awa' to Whunnyliggate to summon auld John Grey for pasturing his coo on the roadside, as soon as ever he heard that M'Kelvie an' me war drinkin' in the toon. Oh, he's a fine polisman! He's aye great for peace. Weel, I was thinkin' that the next time I got in my left, it wad settle M'Kelvie. An' what M'Kelvie was thinkin' I do not ken, for M'Kelvie is nocht but an Irishman. But oot o' the grund there raise a great muckle man in grey claes, and took fechtin' M'Kelvie an' me by the cuff o' the neck, and dauded oor heids thegither till we saw a guano-bagfu' o' stars.

"'Noo, wull ye shake hands or come to the lock-up?' says he.

"We thocht he maun be the chief o' a' the chief constables, an' we didna want to gang to nae lock-ups, so we just shook haun's freendly-like. Then he sent a' them that was lookin' on awa' wi' a flee in their lugs.

"'Forty men,' says he, 'an' feared to stop twa men fechtin'--cowards or brutes, eyther o' the twa!' says he.

"There was a bailie amang them he spoke to, so we thocht he was bound to be a prince o' the bluid, at the least. This is what I thocht, but I canna tell what M'Kelvie thocht, for he was but an Irishman. So it does not matter what M'Kelvie thocht.

"But the big man in grey says, 'Noo, lads, I've done ye a good turn. You come and hear me preach the morn in the kirk at the fit o' the hill.' 'A minister!' cried M'Kelvie an' me. A wastril whalp could hae dung us owre with its tail. We war that surprised like."

So that is the way "Drucken" Bourtree became a God-fearing quarryman. And as for M'Kelvie, he got three months for assaulting and battering the policeman that very night; but then, M'Kelvie was only an Irishman!

[The end]
S. R. Crockett's short story: Cairn Edward Kirk Militant

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