*      *      *      *      *After an hour's hard work Doog Carnochan sighed. Five minutes more and he opened his eyes. They twinkled blackly up at his preserver with a kind of ironical appreciation of the situation, and he smiled."Ah, Nathan," he murmured, "sae it's you that has drawn me oot o' the black flood water! Man, ye had better hae let weel alane!"On this occasion Doog was not a humourist only. He was also a true prophet. For, from every point of view save that of the Eternal Decrees, it would indeed have been infinitely better if Nathan had let well alone, and not wrested back the unstable and degraded spirit of Douglas Carnochan from the rushing waters of Whinnyliggate Lane, that January night when Loch Girthon burst its bounds.For, as Nathan had forecast, even so it was. Doog promptly returned to his wallowing in the mire, without even making a pretence of amending his restored life. Duly he brought down his wife's too early grey hairs in sorrow to the grave. His children, left to run wild, divided their time between the "Golden Lion" and the country gaol. Doog drank himself into an unhonoured grave. Only Nathan Monypenny remains, an old man now, yet holding firm-lipped to a conviction that God has explanations of the working of His laws which He refuses to us on this Hither Side, but which will be granted in full to us when we "know as also we are known."After Doog's death Nathan bought and immediately razed to the ground the cottage at the foot of the street where Dahlia Carnochan's life tragedy had been enacted. He has planted a garden of flowers there, to the scorn and scandal of the whole village, which is cut to its utilitarian heart to see so much good potato land wasted—simply wasted.And every night before Nathan goes to bed he steps quietly to the low place in the privet hedge, over which he lifted little Dahlia Ogilvy more than fifty years ago. He does nothing when he gets there. He does not even pray. He has none to pray for, and he wants nothing for himself save God's ultimate gift, easeful death, and that, he knows, cannot long be delayed.But if you watch him closely, you may see him lift his hand and rest it gently upon the stem of an ancient rose-tree, as if he had laid it in benediction upon a young child's head.Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKTHE STICKIT MINISTER'S WOOING***
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After an hour's hard work Doog Carnochan sighed. Five minutes more and he opened his eyes. They twinkled blackly up at his preserver with a kind of ironical appreciation of the situation, and he smiled.
"Ah, Nathan," he murmured, "sae it's you that has drawn me oot o' the black flood water! Man, ye had better hae let weel alane!"
On this occasion Doog was not a humourist only. He was also a true prophet. For, from every point of view save that of the Eternal Decrees, it would indeed have been infinitely better if Nathan had let well alone, and not wrested back the unstable and degraded spirit of Douglas Carnochan from the rushing waters of Whinnyliggate Lane, that January night when Loch Girthon burst its bounds.
For, as Nathan had forecast, even so it was. Doog promptly returned to his wallowing in the mire, without even making a pretence of amending his restored life. Duly he brought down his wife's too early grey hairs in sorrow to the grave. His children, left to run wild, divided their time between the "Golden Lion" and the country gaol. Doog drank himself into an unhonoured grave. Only Nathan Monypenny remains, an old man now, yet holding firm-lipped to a conviction that God has explanations of the working of His laws which He refuses to us on this Hither Side, but which will be granted in full to us when we "know as also we are known."
After Doog's death Nathan bought and immediately razed to the ground the cottage at the foot of the street where Dahlia Carnochan's life tragedy had been enacted. He has planted a garden of flowers there, to the scorn and scandal of the whole village, which is cut to its utilitarian heart to see so much good potato land wasted—simply wasted.
And every night before Nathan goes to bed he steps quietly to the low place in the privet hedge, over which he lifted little Dahlia Ogilvy more than fifty years ago. He does nothing when he gets there. He does not even pray. He has none to pray for, and he wants nothing for himself save God's ultimate gift, easeful death, and that, he knows, cannot long be delayed.
But if you watch him closely, you may see him lift his hand and rest it gently upon the stem of an ancient rose-tree, as if he had laid it in benediction upon a young child's head.
Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKTHE STICKIT MINISTER'S WOOING***