The Colleging Of Simeon Gleg

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Title:     The Colleging Of Simeon Gleg
Author: S. R. Crockett [More Titles by Crockett]

Forth from the place of furrows
To the Town of the Many Towers;
Full many a lad from the ploughtail
Has gone to strive with the hours,

Leaving the ancient wisdom
Of tilth and pasturage,
For the empty honour of striving,
And the emptier name of sage.

"Shadows."

Without blared all the trumpets of the storm. The wind howled and the rain blattered on the manse windows. It was in the upland parish of Blawrinnie, and the minister was preparing his Sabbath's sermon. The study lamp was lit and the window curtains were drawn. Robert Ford Buchanan was the minister of Blawrinnie. He was a young man who had only been placed a year or two, and he had a great idea of the importance of his weekly sermons to the Blawrinnie folk. He also spoke of "My People" in an assured manner when he came up to the Assembly in May:

"I am thinking of giving my people a series of lectures on the Old Testament, embodying the results of--"

"Hout na, laddie," said good Roger Drumly, who got a D.D. for marrying a professor's sister (and deserved a V.C.), "ye had better stick to the Shorter's Quastions an' preach nae whigmaleeries i' the pairish o' Blawrinnie. Tak' my word for it, they dinna gie a last year's nest-egg for a' the results of creeticism. I was yince helper there mysel', ye maun mind, an' I ken Blawrinnie."

There is no manner of doubt that Dr. Drumly was right. Since he married the professor's sister, he did not speak much himself, except in his sermons, which were inordinately long; but he was a man very much respected, for, as one of his elders said, "Gin he does little guid in the pairish, he is a quate, ceevil man, an' does just as little ill." And this, after all, is chiefly what is expected of a settled and official minister with a manse and glebe in that part of the country. Too much zeal is not thought to become him. It is well enough in a mere U.P.

But the Reverend Robert Ford Buchanan had not so settled on his lees as to accept such a negative view of his duties. He must try to help his people singly and individually, and this he certainly did to the best of his ability. For he neither spent all his time running after Dissenters, as the manner of some is; nor yet did he occupy all his pastoral visits with conversations on the iniquity of Disestablishment, as is others' use and wont. He went in a better way about the matter, in order to prove himself a worthy minister of the parish, taking such a vital interest in all that appertained to it, that no man could take his bishopric from him.

Among other things, he had a Bible-class for the young, in which the hope of the parish of Blawrinnie was instructed as to the number of hands that had had the making of the different prophecies, and upon the allusions to primitive customs in the book of Genesis (which the minister called a "historical synopsis"). There were three lassies attending the class, and three young men who came to walk home with the lassies. Unfortunately, two of the young men wanted to walk home with the same young lass, so that the minister's Bible-class could not always be said to make for peace. As, indeed, the Reverend Doctor Drumly foretold when the thing was started. He had met the professor's sister first at a Bible-class, and was sore upon the subject.

But it was the minister's Bible-class that procured Mr. Ford Buchanan the honour of a visit that night of storm and stress. First of all there was an unwonted stir in the kitchen, audible even in the minister's study, where he stood on one leg, with a foot on a chair, consulting authorities. (He was an unmarried man.)

Elizabeth Milligan, better known as "the minister's Betsy," came and rapped on the door in an undecided way. It was a very interesting authority the minister was consulting, so he only said "Thank you, Elizabeth!" in an absent-minded way and went on reading, rubbing his moustache the while with the unoccupied hand in a way which, had he known it, kept it perpetually thin.

But Betty continued to knock, and finally put her head within the study door.

"It's no' yer parritch yet," she said. "It's but an hour since ye took yer tea. But, if ye please, minister, wad ye be so kind as open the door? There's somebody ringing the front-door bell, an' it's jammed wi' the rain forbye, an' nae wise body gangs and comes that gait ony way, binna yersel'."

"Certainly, certainly, Elizabeth; I will open the door immediately!" said the minister, laying down his book and marking the place with last week's list of psalms and intimations.

Mr. Buchanan went to the seldom-used front door, turned the key, and threw open the portal to see who the visitor might be who rang the manse bell at eight o'clock on such a night. Betsy hung about the outskirts of the hall in a fever of anticipation and alarm. It might be a highwayman--or even a wild U.P. There was no saying.

But when the minister pulled the door wide open, he looked out and saw nothing. Only blackness and tossing leaves were in front of him.

"Who's there?" he cried, peremptorily, in his pulpit voice--which he used when "my people" stood convicted of some exhibition of extreme callousness to impression.

But only the darkness fronted him and the swirl of wind slapped the wet ivy-leaves against the porch.

Then apparently from among his feet a little piping voice replied--

"If ye please, minister, I want to learn Greek and Laitin, an' to gang to the college."

The minister staggered back aghast. He could see no one at all, and this peeping, elfish-like voice, rising amid the storm to his ear out of the darkness, reminded him of the days when he believed in the other world--that is, of course, the world of spirits and churchyard ghosts.

But gradually there grew upon him a general impression of a little figure, broad and squat, standing bareheaded and with cap in hand on his threshold. The minister came to himself, and his habits of hospitality asserted themselves.

"You want to learn Greek and Latin," he said, accustomed to extraordinary requests. "Come in and tell me all about it."

The little, broad figure stepped within the doorway.

"I'm a' wat wi' the rain," again quoth the elfish voice, more genially, "an' I'm no' fit to gang into a gentleman's hoose."

"Come into the dining-room," said the minister kindly.

"'Deed, an' ye'll no," interposed Betsy, who had been coming nearer. "Ye'se juist gang into the study, an' I'll lay doon a bass for ye to stand an' dreep on. Where come ye frae, laddie?"

"I am Tammas Gleg's laddie. My faither disna ken that I hae come to see the minister," said the boy.

"The loon's no' wise!" muttered Betsy. "Could the back door no' hae served ye?--Bringing fowk away through the hoose traikin' to open the front door to you on sic a nicht! Man, ye are a peetifu' object!"

The object addressed looked about him. He was making a circle of wetness on the floor. He was taken imperatively by the coat-sleeve.

"Ye canna gang into the study like that. There wad be nae dryin' the floor. Come into the kitchen, laddie," said Betsy. "Gang yer ways ben, minister, to your ain gate-end, an' the loon'll be wi' ye the noo."

So Betsy, who was accustomed to her own way in the manse of Blawrinnie, drove Tammas Gleg's laddie before her into the kitchen, and the minister went into the study with a kind of junior apostolic meekness. Then he meditatively settled his hard circular collar, which he wore in the interests of Life and Work, but privately hated with a deadly hatred, as his particular form of penance.

It was no very long season that he had to wait, and before he had done more than again lift up his interesting "authority," the door of the study was pushed open and Betsy cried in, "Here he's!" lest there might be any trouble in the identification. And not without some reason. For, strange as was the figure which had stepped into the minister's lobby out of the storm, the vision which now met his eyes was infinitely stranger.

A thick-set body little over four and a half feet high, exceedingly thick and stout, was surmounted with one of the most curious heads the minister had ever seen. He saw a round apple face, eyes of extraordinary brightness, a thin-lipped mouth which seemed to meander half-way round the head as if uncertain where to stop. Betsy had arrayed this "object" in a pink bed-gown of her own, a pair of the minister's trousers turned up nearly to the knee in a roll the thickness of a man's wrist, and one of the minister's new-fangled M.B. waistcoats, through the armholes of which two very long arms escaped, clad as far as the elbows in the sleeves of the pink bed-gown.

Happily the minister was wholly destitute of a sense of humour (and therefore clearly marked for promotion in the Church); and the privation stood him in good stead now. It only struck him as a little irregular to be sitting in the study with a person so attired. But he thought to himself--"After all, he may be one of My People."

"And what can I do for you?" he said kindly, when the Object was seated opposite to him on the very edge of a large arm-chair, the pink arms laid like weapons of warfare upon his knees, and the broad hands warming themselves in a curious unattached manner at the fire.

"Ye see, sir," began the Object, "I am Seemion Gleg, an' I am ettlin' to be a minister."

The Reverend Robert Ford Buchanan started. He came of a Levitical family, and over his head there were a series of portraits of very dignified gentlemen in extensive white neckerchiefs, his forebears and predecessors in honourable office--a knee-breeched, lace-ruffled moderator among them.

It was as if a Prince of the Blood had listened to some rudely democratic speech from a waif of the causeway.

"A minister!" he exclaimed. Then, as a thought flashed across him--"Oh, a Dissenting preacher!" he continued.

This would explain matters.

"Na, na," said Simeon Gleg; "nae Dissenter ava'. I'm for the Kirk itsel'--the Auld Kirk or naething. That was the way my mither brocht me up. An' I want to learn Greek an' Laitin. I hae plenty o' spare time, an' my maister gies me a' the forenichts. I can learn at the peat fire after the ither men are gane to their beds."

"Your master!" said the minister. "Do you mean your teacher?"

"Na, na," said Simeon Gleg; "I mean Maister Golder o' the Glaisters. I serve there as plooman!"

"You!" exclaimed the minister, aghast. "How old may you be?"

"I'm gaun in my nineteenth year," said Simeon. "I'm no' big for my age, I ken; but I can throw ony man that I get grups on, and haud ony beast whatsomever. I can ploo wi' the best an' maw--Weel, I'm no' gaun to brag, but ye can ask Maister Golder--that is an elder o' your ain, an' comes at least twa Sabbaths afore every Communion to hear ye."

"But why do ye want to learn Greek and Latin?" queried the minister.

"Weel, ye see, sir," said Simeon Gleg, leaning forward to poke the manse fire with the toe of his stocking--the minister watching with interest to see if he could do it without burning the wool--"I hae saved twunty pounds, and I thocht o' layin' it oot on the improvement o' my mind. It's a heap o' money, I ken; but, then, my mind needs a feck o' impruvement--if ye but kenned hoo ignorant I am, ye wadna wonder. Ay, ay"--taking, as it were, a survey of the whole ground--"my mind will stand a deal o' impruvement. It's gey rough, whinny grund, and has never been turned owre. But I was thinkin' Enbra wad gie it a rare bit lift. What do ye think o' the professors there? I was hearin' some o' them wasna thocht muckle o'!"

The minister moved a little uneasily in his chair, and settled his circular collar.

"Well," he said, "they are able men--most of them."

He was a cautious minister.

"Dod, an' I'm gled to hear ye sayin' that. It's a relief to my mind," said Simeon Gleg. "I dinna want to fling my twunty pound into the mill-dam."

"But I understood you to say," went on the minister, "that you intended to enter the ministry of the Kirk."

"Ou ay, that's nae dout my ettlin'. But that's a lang gate to gang, an' in the meantime my object in gaun to the college is juist the cultivation o' my mind."

The wondrous apple-faced ploughboy in the red-sleeved bed-gown looked thoughtfully at the palms of his horny hands as he reeled off this sentence. But he had more to say.

"I think Greek and Laitin wull be the best way. Twunty pounds' worth--seven for fees an' the rest for providin'. But my mither says she'll gie me a braxy ham or twa, an' a crock o' butter."

"But what do you know?" asked the minister. "Have you begun the languages?"

Simeon Gleg wrestled a moment with the M.B. waistcoat, and from the inside of it he extricated two books.

"This," he said, "is Melvin's Laitin Exercises, an' I hae the Rudiments at hame. I hae been through them twice. An' this is the Academy Greek Rudiments. O man--I mean, O minister"--he broke out earnestly, "gin ye wad juist gie the letters a bit rin owre. I dinna ken hoo to mak' them soond!"

The minister ran over the Greek letters.

The eyes of Simeon Gleg were upturned in heartfelt thankfulness. His long arms danced convulsively upon his knees. He shot out his red-knotted fingers till they cracked with delight.

"Man, man, an' that's the soond o' them! It's awsome queer! But, O, it's bonny, bonny! There's nocht like the Greek and the Laitin!"

Now, there were many more brilliant ministers in Scotland than the minister of Blawrinnie, but none kindlier; and in a few minutes he had offered to give Simeon Gleg two nights a week in the dead languages. Simeon quivered with the mighty words of thankfulness that rose to his Adam's apple, but which would not come further. He took the minister's hand.

"Oh, sir," he said, "I canna thank ye! I haena words fittin'! Gin I had the Greek and Laitin, I wad ken what to say till ye--"

"Never mind, Simeon; do not say a word. I understand all about it," replied the minister warmly.

Simeon still lingered undecided. He was now standing in the M.B. waistcoat and the pink bed-gown. The sleeves were more obtrusive than ever. The minister was reminded of his official duties. He said tentatively--

"Ah--would you--perhaps you would like me to give you a word of advice, or--ah--perhaps to engage in prayer?"

These were things usually expected in Blawrinnie.

"Na, na!" cried Simeon eagerly. "No' that! But, O minister, ye micht gie thae letters anither skelp owre--aboot Alfy, Betaw, Gaumaw!"

The minister took the Greek Rudiments again without a smile, and read the alphabet slowly and with unction, as if it were his first chapter on the Sabbath morning--and a full kirk.

Simeon Gleg stood by, looking up and clasping his hands in ecstasy.

"O Lord," he said, "help me keep mind o' it! It's just like the kingdom o' heaven! Greek an' Laitin's the thing! There's nae mistak', Greek and Laitin's the thing!"

Then on the doorstep he turned, after Betsy had reclad him in his dry clothes and lent him the minister's third best umbrella.

This was Simeon Gleg's good-bye to the minister--

"Twunty pound is a dreadfu' heap o' siller; but, O minister, my mind 'ill stand an awfu' sicht o' impruvement! It'll no' be a penny owre muckle!"

[The end]
S. R. Crockett's short story: Colleging Of Simeon Gleg

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