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A short story by S. R. Crockett |
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A Finished Young Lady |
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Title: A Finished Young Lady Author: S. R. Crockett [More Titles by Crockett] I I cannot send thee gold II No daffodil doth blow III To-day I have not got IV Yet none of these can claim V But joy I'll take in this, There were few bigger men in the West of Scotland than Fergus Teeman, the grocer in Port Ryan. He had come from Glasgow and set up in quite grand style, succeeding to the business of his uncle, John M'Connell, who had spent all his days selling treacle and snuff to the guidwives of the Port. When Fergus Teeman came from Glasgow, he found that he could not abide the small-paned, gloomy windows of the grocer's shop at the corner, so in a little while the whole shop became window and door, overfrowned by mere eyebrows of chocolate-coloured eaves. He had a broad and gorgeous sign specially painted in place of the old "John M'Connell, licensed to sell Tea, Coffee, and Tobacco," which had so long occupied its place. Then he dismounted the crossed pipes and the row of sweetie-bottles, and filled the great windows according to the latest canons of Glasgow retail provision-trade taste. The result was amazing, and for days there was the danger of a block before the windows. It was as good as a peep-show, and considerably cheaper. As many as four boys and a woman with a shawl over her head, had been counted on the pavement in front of the shop at once--a fact which the people in the next town refused to credit. Fergus Teeman was a business man. He was "no gentleman going about with his hands in his pockets"--he said so himself. And so far he was right, for, let his hands be where they might, certainly he was no gentleman. But, for all that, he was a big man in Port Ryan, and it was a great day for the Kirk in the Vennel when Fergus Teeman led his family to worship within the precincts of that modest Zion. They made much of him there, and Fergus sunned himself in his pew in the pleasing warmth of his own greatness. In the congregation from whence he had come he had not been accustomed to be so treated. He had held a seat far under the gallery; but in the Kirk in the Vennel he had the corner seat opposite to the manse pew. There Fergus installed his wife and family, and there last of all he shut himself in with a bang. He then looked pityingly around as his women-folk reverently bent a moment forward on the book-board. That was well enough for women, but a leading grocer could not so bemean himself. In a few months Fergus started a van. This was a new thing about the Port. The van was for the purpose of conveying the goods and benefits of the Emporium to the remoter villages. The van was resplendent with paint and gilding. It was covered with advertisements of its contents executed in the highest style of art. The Kirk in the Vennel felt the reflected glory, and promptly elected him an elder. A man must be a good man to come so regularly to ordinances and own such a van. The wife of this magnificent member of society was, like the female of so many of the lower animals, of modest mien and a retiring plumage. She sat much in the back parlour; and even when she came out, she crept along in the shadow of the houses. "Na," said Jess Kissock of the Bow Head, "it's no' a licht thing to be wife to sic a man"--which, indeed, it assuredly was not. Mrs. Fergus Teeman could have given some evidence on that subject, but she only hid her secrets under the shabby breast of her stuff gown. There was said to be a daughter at a boarding-school employed in "finishing," whatever that might be. There were also various boys like steps in an uneven stair, models of all the virtues under their father's eye, and perfect demons on the street--that is, on the streets of Port Ryan which were not glared upon by the omniscient plate-glass of Teeman's Emporium. There was no minister in the Kirk in the Vennel when Fergus Teeman came to Port Ryan. The last one had got another kirk after fifteen years' service, thirteen of which he had spent in fishing for just such a call as he got, being heartily tired of the miserable ways of his congregation. When he received the invitation, he waited a week before he thought it would be decent to say, that perhaps he might have seriously to consider whether this were not a direct leading of Providence. On the following Thursday he accepted. On the Monday he left Port Ryan for ever, directing his meagre properties to be sent after him. He shook his fist at the town as the train moved out. So Fergus Teeman was just in time to come in for the new election, which seemed like a favouritism of Providence to a new man--for, of course, he was put on the committee which was to choose the candidates. Then there was a great preaching. All the candidates stopped with Mr. Teeman. This suited the Kirk in the Vennel, for it was a saving in expense. It also suited Fergus Teeman, for it allowed him to sound them on all the subjects which interested him. And, as he said, the expense was really a mere trifle, so long as one did not give them ham and eggs for their breakfast. It is not good to preach on ham and eggs. It spoils the voice. Fergus Teeman had a cutting out of the Glasgow Weekly Flail, an able paper which is the Saturday Bible of those parts. This extract said that Adelina Patti could not sing for five hours after ham and eggs. It is just the same with preaching. Fergus, therefore, read this to the candidates, and gave them for breakfast plain bread and butter (best Irish cooking, 6-1/2d. per pound). Fergus was an orthodox man. His first question was, "How long are you out of the college?" His next, "Were you under Professor Robertson?" His third, "Do ye haud wi' hymn-singin', street-preachin', revival meetings, and novel-reading?" From the answers to these questions Fergus Teeman formed his own short leet. It was a very short one. There was only the Rev. Farish Farintosh upon it. He took "cent.-per-cent." in the examination. Some of the others made a point or two in their host's estimation, but Farish Farintosh cleared the paper. He was just out of college that very month--which was true. (But he did not say that he had been detained a year or two, endeavouring to overcome the strange scruples of the Examination Board.) He had studied under Professor Robertson, and had frequently proved him wrong to his very face in the class, till the students could not keep from laughing (which, between ourselves, was a lie). He was no hypocrite, advanced critic, or teetotaler, and would scorn to say he was. (He smelled Fergus Teeman's breath. He had been a staunch teetotaler at another vacancy the Saturday before.) He would not open a hymn-book for thirty pounds. This was the very man for Fergus Teeman. So they made a night of it, and consumed five "rake" of hot water. Hot water is good for the preaching. But, strange to say, when the day of the voting came, the congregation would by no means have the Reverend Farish Farintosh, though his claims were vehemently urged by the grocer in a speech, with strange blanks in the places where the strong words would have come on other occasions. They elected instead a mere nobody of a young beardless boy, who had been a year or two in a city mission, and whose only recommendation was that he had very successfully worked among the poor of his district. Fergus Teeman stated his opinions of the new minister, across his counter, often and vehemently. "The laddie kens nae mair nor a guano-bag. There's nocht in him but what the spoon pits intil him. He hasna the spunk o' a rabbit. I tell ye what, we need a man o' wecht in oor kirk. Come up oot o' there, boy; ye're lickin' that sugar again! Na, he'll ken wha he's preachin' till, when he stands up afore me. My e'e wull be on him nicht and day. Hae ye no thae bags made yet? Gin they're no' dune in five meenits, I'll knock the heid aff ye!" The new minister came. He was placed with a great gathering of the clans. The Kirk in the Vennel was full to overflowing the night of his first sermon. Fergus Teeman 'was there with his notebook, and before the close of the service more than two pages were filled with the measure of the new minister's iniquity. Then, on the Tuesday after, young Duncan Stewart, seeking to know all his office-bearers, entered like the innocentest of flies the plate-glass-fronted shop where Fergus Teeman lay in wait. There and then, before half a score of interested customers, the elder gave the young minister "sic a through-pittin' as he never gat in his life afore." This was the elder's own story, but the popular opinion was clearly on the side of the minister. It had to be latent opinion, however, for the names of most of the congregation stood in the big books in Fergus Teeman's shop. The minister commended himself to his Maker, and went about his own proper business. Every Sabbath, after the sermon, often also before the service, Fergus Teeman was on hand to say his word of reproof to the young minister, to interject the sneering word which, like the poison of asps, turned sweet to bitter. Had Duncan Stewart been older or wiser, he would have showed him to the door. Unfortunately he was just a simple, honest, well-meaning lad from college, trying to do his duty in the Kirk in the Vennel so far as he knew it. There was an interval of some months before the minister could bring himself to visit again the shop and house of his critical elder. This time he thought that he would try the other door. As yet he had only paid his respects at a distance to Mrs. Teeman. It seemed as if they had avoided each other. He was shown into a room in which a canary was swinging in the window, and a copy of Handel's Messiah lay on the open piano. This was unlike the account he had heard of Mrs. Teeman. There was a merry voice on the stairs, which said clearly in girlish tones-- "Do go and make yourself decent, father; and then if you are good you may come in and see the minister!" Duncan Stewart said to himself that something had happened. He was right, and something very important, too. May Teeman was "finished." "And I hope you like me," she had said to her father when she came home. "Sit down, you disreputable old man, till I do your hair. You're not fit to be seen!" And, though it would not be credited in the Port, it is a fact that Fergus Teeman sat down without a word. In a week her father was a new man. In a fortnight May kept the key of the cupboard where the square decanter was hidden. A tall, slim girl with an eager face, and little wisps of fair hair curling about her head, came into the room and frankly held out her hand to the minister. "You are Mr. Stewart. I am glad to see you." Whereupon they fell a-talking, and in a twinkling were in the depths of a discussion upon poetry. Duncan Stewart was so intent on watching the swift changes of expression across the face of this girl, that he made several flying shots in giving his opinions of certain poems--for which he was utterly put to shame by May Teeman, who instantly fastened him to his random opinions and asked him to explain them. To them entered another Fergus Teeman to the militant critic of the Sabbath morning whom Duncan knew too well. "Sit down, father. Make yourself at home," said his daughter. "I am just going to play something." And so her father sat down not ill-pleased, and, according to her word, tried to make himself at home, till the hours slipped away, and Duncan Stewart was induced to stay for tea. "He's mellowin' fine, like a good blend o' Glenlivet!" said the grocer next day, in his shop. (He did not speak nearly so loud as he used to do.) "He's comin' awa' brawly. I'll no' say but what I was owre sharp wi' the lad at first. He'll mak' a sound minister yet, gin he was a kennin' mair spunky. Hear till me, yon was a graun' sermon we got yesterday. It cowed a'! Man, Lochnaw, he touched ye up fine aboot pride and self-conceit!" * * * * * "What's at the bottom o' a' that, think ye, na?" asked Lochnaw that night as his wife and he dodged home at the rate of five miles an hour behind the grey old pony with the shaggy fetlocks. "Ye cuif," said his wife; "that dochter o' his 'ill be gaun up to the manse. That boardin'-schule feenished her, an' she's feenished the minister!" "Davert! what a woman ye are!" said Lochnaw, in great admiration. [The end] GO TO TOP OF SCREEN |