Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers | Page 8

hours we'll see Tochty woods. The very thought makes me a boy again, and it seems yesterday that I kissed your mother on the door-step of the old lodge and went off to the Crimean war.
"That's Muirtown Castle over there in the wood--a grand place in its way, but nothing to our home, lassie. Kilspindie--he was Viscount Hay then--joined me at Muirtown, and we fought through the weary winter. He left the army after the war, with lots of honour. A good fellow was Hay, both in the trenches and the messroom.
"I 've never seen him since, and I dare say he 's forgotten a battered old Indian. Besides, he's the big swell in this district, and I 'm only a poor Hielant laird, with a wood and a tumble-down house and a couple of farms."
"You are also a shameless hypocrite and deceiver, for you believe that the Carnegies are as old as the Hays, and you know that, though you have only two farms, you have twelve medals and seven wounds. What does money matter? it simply makes people vulgar."
"Nonsense, lassie; if a Carnegie runs down money, it's because he has got none and wishes he had. If you and I had only a few hundreds a year over the half-pay to rattle in our pockets, we should have lots of little pleasures, and you might have lived in England, with all sorts of variety and comfort, instead of wandering about India with a gang of stupid old chaps who have been so busy fighting that they never had time to read a book."
"You mean like yourself, dad, and V. C. and Colonel Kinloch? Where could a girl have found finer company than with my Knights of King Arthur? And do you dare to insinuate that I could have been content away from the regiment, that made me their daughter after mother died, and the army?
"Pleasure!" and Kate's cheek flushed. "I 've had it since I was a little tot and could remember anything--the bugles sounding reveille in the clear air, and the sergeants drilling the new drafts in the morning, and the regiment coming out with the band before and you at its head, and hearing 'God save the Queen' at a review, and seeing the companies passing like one man before the General.
"Don't you think that's better than tea-drinking, and gossiping, and sewing meetings, and going for walks in some stupid little hole of a country town? Oh, you wicked, aggravating dad. Now, what more will money do?"
"Well," said the General, with much gravity, "if you were even a moderate heiress there is no saying but that we might pick up a presentable husband for you among the lairds. As it is, I fancy a country minister is all you could expect.
"Don't . . . my ears will come off some day; one was loosened by a cut in the Mutiny. No, I 'll never do the like again. But some day you will marry, all the same," and Kate's father rubbed his ears.
"No, I 'm not going to leave you, for nobody else could ever make a curry to please; and if I do, it will not be a Scotch minister--horrid, bigoted wretches, V. C. says. Am I like a minister's wife, to address mothers' meetings and write out sermons? By the way, is there a kirk at Drumtochty, or will you read prayers to Janet and Donald and me?"
"When I was a lad there was just one minister in Drumtochty, Mr. Davidson, a splendid specimen of the old school, who, on great occasions, wore gaiters and a frill with a diamond in the centre; he carried a gold-headed stick, and took snuff out of a presentation box.
"His son Sandie was my age to a year, and many a ploy we had together; there was the jackdaw's nest in the ivy on the old tower we harried together," and the General could only indicate the delightful risk of the exploit. "My father and the minister were pacing the avenue at the time, and caught sight of us against the sky. 'It's your rascal and mine, Laird,' we heard the minister say, and they waited till we got down, and then each did his duty by his own for trying to break his neck; but they were secretly proud of the exploit, for I caught my father showing old Lord Kilspindie the spot, and next time Hay was up he tried to reach the place, and stuck where the wall hangs over. I 'll point out the hole this evening; you can see it from the other side of the den quite plain."
[Illustration: "Many a ploy we had together."]
"Sandie went to the church--I wish every parson were as straight--and Kilspindie appointed him to succeed the old gentleman,