The Little Minister | Page 4

Auld Licht kirk,
and Margaret did not even hear of me. It was all I could do for them.
CHAPTER II.
RUNS ALONGSIDE THE MAKING OF A MINISTER.
On the east coast of Scotland, hidden, as if in a quarry, at the foot of

cliffs that may one day fall forward, is a village called Harvie. So has it
shrunk since the day when I skulked from it that I hear of a traveller's
asking lately at one of its doors how far he was from a village; yet
Harvie throve once and was celebrated even in distant Thrums for its
fish. Most of our weavers would have thought it as unnatural not to buy
harvies in the square on the Muckle Friday, as to let Saturday night
pass without laying in a sufficient stock of halfpennies to go round the
family twice.
Gavin was born in Harvie, but left it at such an early age that he could
only recall thatched houses with nets drying on the roofs, and a sandy
shore in which coarse grass grew. In the picture he could not pick out
the house of his birth, though he might have been able to go to it had he
ever returned to the village. Soon he learned that his mother did not
care to speak of Harvie, and perhaps he thought that she had forgotten
it too, all save one scene to which his memory still guided him. When
his mind wandered to Harvie, Gavin saw the door of his home open and
a fisherman enter, who scratched his head and then said, "Your man's
drowned, missis." Gavin seemed to see many women crying, and his
mother staring at them with a face suddenly painted white, and next to
hear a voice that was his own saying, "Never mind, mother; I'll be a
man to you now, and I'll need breeks for the burial." But Adam
required no funeral, for his body lay deep in the sea.
Gavin thought that this was the tragedy of his mother's life, and the
most memorable event of his own childhood. But it was neither. When
Margaret, even after she came to Thrums, thought of Harvie, it was not
at Adam's death she shuddered, but at the recollection of me.
It would ill become me to take a late revenge on Adam Dishart now by
saying what is not true of him. Though he died a fisherman he was a
sailor for a great part of his life, and doubtless his recklessness was
washed into him on the high seas, where in his time men made a crony
of death, and drank merrily over dodging it for another night. To me his
roars of laughter without cause were as repellent as a boy's drum; yet
many faces that were long in my company brightened at his coming,
and women, with whom, despite my yearning, I was in no wise a

favorite, ran to their doors to listen to him as readily as to the bell-man.
Children scurried from him if his mood was savage, but to him at all
other times, while me they merely disregarded. There was always a
smell of the sea about him. He had a rolling gait, unless he was drunk,
when he walked very straight, and before both sexes he boasted that
any woman would take him for his beard alone. Of this beard he took
prodigious care, though otherwise thinking little of his appearance, and
I now see that he understood women better than I did, who had
nevertheless reflected much about them. It cannot be said that he was
vain, for though he thought he attracted women strangely, that, I
maintain, is a weakness common to all men, and so no more to be
marvelled at than a stake in a fence. Foreign oaths were the nails with
which he held his talk together, yet I doubt not they were a curiosity
gathered at sea, like his chains of shells, more for his own pleasure than
for others' pain. His friends gave them no weight, and when he wanted
to talk emphatically he kept them back, though they were then as
troublesome to him as eggs to the bird-nesting boy who has to speak
with his spoil in his mouth.
Adam was drowned on Gavin's fourth birthday, a year after I had to
leave Harvie. He was blown off his smack in a storm, and could not
reach the rope his partner flung him. "It's no go, lad," he shouted; "so
long, Jim," and sank.
A month afterwards Margaret sold her share in the smack, which was
all Adam left her, and the furniture of the house was rouped. She took
Gavin to Glasgow, where her only brother needed a housekeeper, and
there mother and