Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers | Page 8

had to be pushed
into the last second by the guard, who knew most of his regular people
and every one of the Drumtochty men. He was so much engaged with
his own thoughts that he gave two English tourists to understand that
Lord Kilspindie's castle, standing amid its woods on the bank of the
Tay, was a recently erected dye work, and that as the train turned off
the North trunk line for Dunleith they might at any moment enter the
pass of Killiecrankie.
CHAPTER II.
PEACE.
"The last stage now, Kit; in less than two 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