FROM PLOUGHSHARE TO PULPIT

A Tale of the Battle of Life

BY GORDON STABLES, M.D., C.M. (Surgeon Royal Navy) AUTHOR OF “THE CRUISE OF THE SNOWBIRD,” “JUST LIKE JACK,” “CHILDREN OF THE MOUNTAIN,” ETC. ETC.

SECOND EDITION. London JAMES NISBET & CO. 21 BERNERS STREET Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co At the Ballantyne Press TO MY OLD PROFESSOR SIR WM. D. GEDDES PRINCIPAL OF ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY This Book is Dedicated WITH SUNNY MEMORIES OF AULD LANG SYNE BY THE AUTHOR {vii}

BOOK I THE STUDENT AT HOME

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FROM PLOUGHSHARE TO PULPIT

CHAPTER I A DEATH THE MOST DREADFUL LOOMED BEFORE HIM

There was something well calculated to raise the spirits of such a man as Mackenzie on this balmy spring morning. Mackenzie was the minister of the parish of Belhaven, a parish that lies far up the winding Don, in a country that combines all the beauties of Lowland vegetation and treescape with the wilder scenery of the true Scottish Highlands.

Mac had been called to this parish when very young, but had remained here ever since, and he was now over forty, hale, handsome, and as straight as the ramrod of the old muzzle-loader he used when shooting rabbits; cheery also to a degree, and he seldom moved around anywhere without singing some old Scotch lilt or merry jig. Well, the fact is Mac’s life was a very easy one. His Church was the Established, not the Free Kirk, and he therefore was to all intents and purposes independent. He had not to depend upon the whims and caprices of the people for his salary,{4} nor upon the state of the crops at harvest-time. Not only had he a good stipend “bound to his head,” as his parishioners phrased it, but a bonnie stretch of glebe land, quite a farm, in fact, that extended for over a mile along one bank of the river.

On this fair day in May, with its blue, blue sky and its fleecy cloudlets, against which, like little dots of darkness, the laverocks quivered and sang, the corn braird was waving green on the braes; the fields, in which sleek-coated kine were roaming, were yellow with buttercups, and starred over with gowans or mountain daisies—Burns’s “wee, modest, crimson-tippèd flower”—and a cool soft breeze went sighing through the lofty pine-trees. Here cawed the busy rooks, here the magpies chattered, and the cushats croodled and moaned; but elsewhere birds were seen and heard in every direction. In the thickets of spruce the blackbird and the mavis had their nests, and their musical rivalry was delightful to listen to, while high up in the lordly rowan-tree by the minister’s gate, the merry bold chaffinch chanted loud and long, and would not be denied. But it was away across the minister’s hill, perhaps, where spring was seen in its greatest beauty to-day. It was a heather hill and a blaeberry[1] hill, and it was gilded over here

and there by great patches of golden whins or furze. These were now all in compact masses of bloom, and the rich delicious odour from their blossoms{5}—Ah! surely there is no finer perfume in nature—filled the air on every side.

There would have been silence up there to-day, save for the plaintive bleating of lambs, the occasional barking of the shepherd’s collie, the hum of bees among the whins, and the sweet tender notes of the rose-linnet perched on a thorn twig above them.

Yes, it was indeed a day to raise the spirits of any one possessed of a soul, and that is just one thing that Mackenzie had, and a very sensitive one too. Not that he was ever much cast down, even in the gloomiest or murkiest of weather, but when the sun glinted in silver radiance off the river that went singing past the old-fashioned manse, with its old-fashioned front garden, and its gate-posts made out of a whale’s jaw-bones;—when the sun was bright, I say, and warm balmy western winds were blowing, then, whether in his study or out of doors, Mackenzie could no more help singing than could the mavis on the lawn, or the starling on the one solitary poplar-tree.

Mac’s life was not a very busy one. He bothered himself far less in visiting even his sick parishioners, and praying with them or talking good things to them, than English parsons invariably do; for most of this sort of thing he could with confidence leave the honest elders of his kirk to perform. But on this particular morning it happened that one of those very elders was lying ill and must be visited.{6} So soon after breakfast, Mac had ordered out the Shetland pony and the little four-wheel trap.

Few who have not seen these ponies in their own wild homes in Shetland, the sea-girdled peat-mosses of the Northern seas, nor seen them in the Highlands of Aberdeenshire, which county seems congenial to the development of their health and powers, could believe the strength they are able at times to put forth, and the self-willed determination they exhibit when they take an idea into their hirsute little noddles.

Larnie, the minister’s pony, was no exception. But indeed he never had been thoroughly broken, since bought for a five-pound note out of a drove at Alford market. Stuart, the minister’s orra man, or, in plain English, man-of-all-work, had pretended to break in the beastie, but Stuart hadn’t really done anything of the kind, and Mackenzie himself was easy-going and far too apt to take things for granted.

But soon Larnie with his little trap was on the gravel in front of the porch, and looking full of life and spirit, despite the fact that Stuart held him not only by the bridle but by the snout as well; and the little animal casting sharp sidelong glances towards the house, kept scraping up the gravel as if impatient to be off.

“Maggie May! Maggie May! are ye coming?” shouted the minister as he strolled out. “It’s a heavenly morning, my lassie.{7}”

Maggie May had appeared in the porch for just a moment in answer to the summons.

A sweet-faced girl of little over twelve, but tall for her years, with blue eyes, an intelligent face, and a wealth of brown hair flowing loose over her shoulders. A slight shade of sadness seemed natural to her, but rather increased than detracted from her singular beauty.

But a smile lit up that bonnie face of hers when she went to smooth and cuddle Larnie.

“Come,” Larnie appeared to say, if ponies’ eyes can speak, “kissing is all very well, but I want some more substantial proof of the affection you pretend to have for me.”

Back to the house ran Maggie May, and next minute had returned with a delicious slab of well-baked white oatcake, and Larnie was happy for once. “Yes, father, I will gladly go with you; I have merely my cloak to put on.”

. . . . . .

The day was so truly delightful that Mackenzie would have been glad to drive quite leisurely in order to enjoy the sweet spring scenery. But Larnie took another view of the matter. He scented oats at the other end of the journey, and determined to push on and have the business over.

The flowers were nodding in dingle and dell; the young crimson-tasselled larch-trees brightened many a hillside; the rich yellow primroses peeped coyly up{8} at their feet; the silver-stemmed birch-trees were drooping on the braelands, their sweet-scented foliage still weeping with the dews of night; but nothing of all this saw Larnie—his thoughts were on oats intent.

Many a strange and beautiful wild bird made wood and welkin ring with his glad notes, but Larnie heard not the songs. Up yonder in a green corn patch a hare pauses in the act of washing his face, that he may sit up and stare curiously at the fast flying equipage—Larnie takes no heed. Rabbits in little groups of five or six scurry here and there among the boulders on bare hillsides, but Larnie takes not the slightest notice. Oats alone absorb his thoughts, so on he flies.

The road was a very winding one. It kept well away from the river, though sometimes approaching it. It was up hill and down dell too, and Larnie was wise enough to get up extra speed when rushing down a hill, so that the momentum might carry the vehicle half-way up the next hill. This is the Highland plan of driving, and in some ways is sensible enough.

But now they were within half-a-mile of the most dangerous part of all the road, for here there was a terribly steep descent, with a high precipice and sharp curve right at the bottom. More than one fatal accident had already taken place at this place, so Mackenzie set himself to the task of immediately restraining the impetuosity of his Shetland steed. This he might have succeeded in doing without{9} much difficulty, but for once fate seemed against him, for just at that moment a hare suddenly bounded from a bush of broom, and crossed the path almost among Larnie’s feet. So startling an apparition caused the nervous little animal to lose all control over himself. Larnie felt as if under the influence of some dreadful nightmare, and I am convinced this is precisely how horses do feel under such circumstances, and off he dashed at a speed that was perfectly uncontrollable by his driver, and which would have been so even had he been a younger and stronger man.

Death, and a death the most dreadful, loomed before him and his little daughter. When they should make the descent and reach the precipice, nothing on earth could save them!

The ground beneath goes rushing past like a grey bewildering mist, the bank at each side, with its greenery of ferns and its wild flowers yellow and crimson, glides by like a lovely rainbow. Maggie May sits quiet and pale, holding on to the side of the trap; Mackenzie himself has almost ceased his futile endeavours to rein up, and abandoned himself to fate, yet his lips are moving in prayer.

And now they are within a hundred—seventy—fifty yards of the dreaded brae that has death at its foot.

Soon all will be over for ever and for aye.

. . . . . .

But see, while still within thirty yards of the hill, a{10} stalwart young figure, who has been reading by the bush-side, takes cognisance of the situation at a glance. He drops the book, and next moment has sprung into the road.

Will he succeed in catching the reins? That is the momentous question. And if he catches them, will all his young strength suffice to restrain the speed of that equine demon? He has but a moment to brace himself for action. Next instant he has sprung like catamount upon its prey.

Brave lad! The attempt so manfully made has succeeded. Yes, he is successful, but the trap is overturned, and he himself has been dragged and is sadly stunned.

What matters that? we may say. He has saved two precious lives, for both Mackenzie and his little daughter are unhurt—intact.

But who is the hero? Who is this bold yet unfortunate stranger?{11}

CHAPTER II AT THE OLD FARM OF KILBUIE

The farm of Kilbuie was by no means of large dimensions, though it was a farm, and not merely a croft. Nor was it, at the time our story commences, in very flourishing conditions, for only one year ago more than twenty head of fat cattle had been taken dead from the byres, a sad and almost irreparable loss to honest Farmer M‘Crae, or “Kilbuie,” as he was more often called, according to the custom of the country.

That last summer and autumn had been a disastrous one all through, for besides the loss in fat cattle, a cow had succumbed in calving, a splendid horse had died; then in the autumn, ere the corn was cut, but when it was all ablaze and ready for the scythe, there had come a terrible storm of wind and hail, and the destruction to the standing crop was pitiable. There was lost at least as much seed as would have sufficed to sow the ground twice over.

“The hand of the Lord is against me,” said the farmer sadly and piously. And he tried to remember what sins he had been guilty of, that he might “repent,” as he phrased it, in “sackcloth and ashes.{12}”

But there were really many far worse and more wicked men in the world than honest Farmer M‘Crae. He hadn’t a neighbour all around who would not have trusted him with their uttermost farthing. Indeed, every Friday, when he took his butter, eggs, and milk to the far-off city of Aberdeen by train, to dispose of in the New Market, his neighbours sent with him large sums of money to bank, and gave him many important commissions besides.

Then, as far as the internal economy and discipline of the farm and farm-steading were concerned, everything was as complete as could be desired.

Kilbuie lay some miles from the river, well into the quiet, still, beautiful country indeed, and at the foot of a highish hill, around whose lower portions grew the golden furze and the bonnie yellow broom, but on whose braes in autumn the heather bloomed purple and crimson. It was a romantic kind of a spot, because there was also not far off a pine wood of tall weird trees, branchless till near their summits, and with no undergrowth, though the ground was soft carpeted with the withered fir-needles of many a long year. This wood was dark even by daylight, and gazing into it from the fields on a summer’s day gave one the idea one was looking into some gloomsome pillared cave. This wood was the home, par excellence, of the cushat or wild pigeon, whose mournful croodling could be heard all day long. But here hares also dwelt, and the cony had many a well-arranged{13} and comfortable burrow. On the whole, although the wood occupied more than a score of acres of the farm, it paid its way after a fashion, for it required no cultivation, it

afforded excellent sport, and it kept the larder full when the purchase of meat would have been entirely out of the question, for more reasons than one.

The live stock and working plant of Kilbuie farm consisted of two pairs of sturdy horses and an orra beast. There is no word in the English language that could do duty for the term “orra.” An orra horse is one, say, about thirteen or fourteen hands high, and perhaps half-blooded. He is capable of doing duty either in a gig or a single harrow, or he will pull a large roller; you can ride on him to church or market, mill or smithy; and so long as he has enough to eat and drink, he is by no means particular as to the quality. He will eat good oats with relish, but he won’t refuse poor hay or even thistles, and I have known one drink sour beer or butter-milk, and smack his lips after it. He is generally good-natured and willing to do anything to oblige, and I do believe he likes his orra life and his constant change of employment.

Well, as there was an orra beast or horse, so there also was an orra man, and his were odd jobs also. To be sure, he did not milk the cows or kye—the indoor servant lassie Jeannie did that—but he fed and attended to them; he took them out in the morning and in at night, and he also attended well to the orra horse, did{14} work in the garden, ran errands, and did everything he was told, like the willing and honest lad his master called him. He was up with the lark in the morning, and in summer-time to bed with the mavis at night.

His name was Geordie Black. But nobody ever thought of putting the Black to his Christian name. Geordie was just Geordie to all and sundry, and nothing more.

There being two pairs of horses, two horsemen were necessary. The first, or best pair, was worked by a tall, hardy, and handsome young fellow, as smart as some ancient Norseman, as tough as an old sea-king. He rejoiced in the simple name of Jamie Duncan, and took the greatest pride possible in his tall and handsome horses. He spared no pains in grooming them, so that what with the brush and the currycomb, and an occasional wash, there were no horses in all the countryside whose hides glittered and glanced as did Jamie’s. When Jamie marched them to the distant smithy to get their shoes seen to, riding sideways on one of them, and singing to himself some old Scotch lilt, the animals elicited universal praise and encomiums. Then Jamie was a happy man indeed.

Nearly all his spare time of an evening was devoted to cleaning the harness of his pets, till the black became like polished jet, and the brass like burnished gold.

Oh, I am not going to say that Jamie had not a sweetheart that he went to see at times, but I do{15} aver that not even for her did he ever neglect the comfort of his horses.

Well, the other pair of horses were worked and seen to equally well by the farmer’s only son, while the only daughter, a blithe and intelligent lassie of sixteen, assisted her mother and Jeannie with the household work, the making of butter and cheese, cooking and cleaning. Jeannie was always cheerful, always merry, never frivolous. Like every one else in this book, she is a character from the real life, and while writing about her, I cannot possibly banish from my mind a bonnie old Scottish song, one verse of which I may be allowed to give, because it paints Jeannie herself. It is called—

The farm-steading of Kilbuie lay fully four miles back from the river, into the interior of the wild and beautiful country, a country but little known to the wandering Englishman, but romantic enough in all conscience, and rendered famous if only from the fact that here Robert the Bruce lay long in hiding before he made his grand and successful{16} attempt to secure his kingdom and free his land from the tyranny of the Saxon invader. It is a country of hills and dells, of wood and water, lochs and roaring streams; a country almost every acre of which has been in days long gone by a battle-field; and hardly can you walk a mile here without stumbling upon the ruins of some feudal castle. Could these strongholds but speak, what tales we should have to listen to—tales that would cause our very heart’s blood to tingle, and nervous cold to run down our spines!

Although four miles from the river and about the same distance from a railway station, the farm was not over a quarter of a mile from a main road, being connected therewith by a level straight road, with a ditch at each side, called the “long loanings.” On each side the fields, level and green, were spread out, and all were surrounded by sturdy stone fences called dikes. A dike in England means a ditch, in Scotland it signifies a wall of loose stones—that is, stones built up without any lime.

The fields around Kilbuie were not, however, all level. By no means. There were hills on the farm so steep that it taxed all the ingenuity of the men to plough or harrow them.

A word about the steading itself. There was in front the square-built unpretentious square house, with bow windows below, and a good old-fashioned garden in front, a garden in which grew vegetables of all kinds, bar potatoes, and whose borders round about{17} were filled with gooseberry and rose trees time about, with fine old-fashioned flowers between. Behind the house was the steading proper, and which was similar to those we see in England, with one most important exception, a dirty dunghill did not lie between the living house and the cattle houses. This is an unsanitary arrangement never beheld in Scotland. Such places are kept well away from the stable, byre, and dwelling-house.