The Stickit Minister's Wooing and Other Galloway Stories. Crockett Samuel Rutherford

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СКАЧАТЬ over forty, but she was even more than youthfully amenable to flattery and to the Eel's beaming and boyish face.

      "You are the new assistant," she said, "Mister – ah – !"

      "Denholm!" said Gilbert, smiling; "it is a nice name. Don't you think so?"

      "I have not thought anything about the matter," said Miss Girnigo, bridling, yet with the ghost of a blush. "I do not charge my mind with such things. Have you come to see my father?"

      "Yes, after a while. But just at present I would rather see your plants!" said the Serpent, who had been well coached. (No wonder Watty Learmont smiled when he asserted that the New Man would preach on Sunday.)

      Now Miss Girnigo lived chiefly for her flowers. The Serpent had a list of them, roughly but accurately compiled from the lady's seed-merchant's ledger by a friend in the business. He had also a fund of information respecting "plants," very recently acquired, on his mind.

      "How did you know I was fond of flowers?" asked Miss Girnigo.

      "Could any one doubt it?" cried Gilbert, with enthusiasm. "Who was the Jo – " (he was on the brink of saying "Johnny") "g – gentleman of whom it was said: 'If you want to see his monument, look around' – Sir Christopher Wren, wasn't it? Well, I looked around as I came up the street!"

      And Gilbert took in the whole front of the manse with his glance. It certainly was very pretty, covered from top to bottom with rambler roses and Virginia cress.

      Gilbert entered, and as they passed in front of the minister's study door Miss Girnigo almost skittishly made a sign for silence, and Gilbert tip-toed past with an exaggeration of caution which made his companion laugh. They found themselves presently in the drawing-room, where again the flower-pots were everywhere, but specially banked round the oriel window. Gilbert named them one after the other like children at a baptism, with a sort of easy certainty and familiarity. His friend the nurseryman's clerk had not failed him. Miss Girnigo was delighted.

      "Well," she said, "it is pleasant to have some one who knows Ceterach Officinarum from a kail-stock. We shall go botanising together!"

      "Ye-es," said Gilbert, a little uncertainly, and with less enthusiasm than might have been expected.

      "Good heavens," he was saying, "how shall I grind up the beastly thing if I have to live up to all this?"

      But Miss Girnigo was in high good-humour, though her pleasure was sadly marred by the incipient cold in her head, which she was conscious prevented her from doing herself justice. At forty, eyes that water and a nose tipped with pink do not make for maiden beauty.

      "I have a dreadful cold coming on, Mr. Denholm," she said; "I really am not fit to be seen. I wonder what I was thinking of to ask you in!"

      "Try this," said Gilbert, pulling a kind of india-rubber puff-ball out of his pocket; "it is quite good. It makes you sneeze like the very – ahem – like anything. Stops a cold in no time – won't be happy till you get it!"

      "I don't dare to – how does it work?" demurred Miss Girnigo.

      Gilbert illustrated, and began to sneeze promptly, as the snuff titillated his air passages.

      "Now you try!" he said, and smiled.

      Gilbert held it insinuatingly to the lady's nostrils and pumped vigorously.

      "A-tish – shoo!" remarked the lady, as if he had touched a spring.

      "A-tish – shoo-oo-ooh!" replied Gilbert.

      After that they responded antiphonally, like Alp answering Alp, till the door opened and Dr. Girnigo appeared with a half-written sheet of sermon paper in his hand.

      The guilty pair stood rooted to the ground – at least, spasmodically so, for every other moment a sneeze lifted one of them upon tiptoe.

      "What is this, Arabella, what is this? What is this young man doing here?"

      "Don't be —a-tish – oo– stupid, papa! You know very well —shoo– it is Mr. Denholm, the new Assist —aroo!"

      "Sir!" said Dr. Girnigo, turning upon his junior and angrily stamping his foot.

      Gilbert held out his hand, and as the Doctor did not take it he waggled it feebly in the air with a sort of impotent good-fellowship.

      "All right," he said; "better presently – only c-curing Miss – Miss Girni —goo-ahoo – arish-chee-hoo– of a cold!"

      "I do not know any one of that name, sir!" thundered the Doctor, not wholly unreasonably.

      "No?" said Gilbert, anxiously; "I understood that this —a-tishoo– lady was Miss Girnigo, though I thought she was too young for a daughter – your granddaughter, perhaps, Doctor?"

      And the smile once more took in Miss Girnigo as if she had been a beautiful picture.

      By this time Miss Girnigo had somewhat recovered.

      "Papa," she said, sharply, "Mr. Denholm is going to be such an acquisition. He is a botanist – a Fellow of the Linnæan Society, I understand – "

      "Of Pittenweem," muttered Gilbert between his teeth.

      "And he is going to preach on Sunday. You have had a lot to worry you this week and need a rest. Besides, your best shirts are not ironed – not dry indeed. The weather has been so bad!"

      "I had made up my mind to preach on Sabbath myself," said Dr. Girnigo, who, though a tyrant untamed without, was held in considerable subjection to the higher power within the bounds of his own house.

      "Nonsense, papa – I will not allow you to think of such a thing!" cried Miss Girnigo. "Besides, Mr. Denholm is coming to supper to-night, and we will talk botany all the time!"

* * * * *

      Which was why the Eel, falling off his bicycle at 1.45 p.m. that same day in front of my house in Cairn Edward (sixteen miles away), burst into my consulting-room with the following demand, proclaimed in frenzied accents: "Lend me your Bentley's Botany, or something – not that beastly jaw-breaking German thing you are so fond of, but something plain and easy, with the names of all the plants in. I have the whole thing to get up by eight o'clock to-night, and I'll eat my head if I can remember what a cotyledon is!"

      It is believed that on the way back the Eel studied Bentley, cunningly adjusted on the handlebar, with loops of string to keep the pages from fluttering. (He was a trick-rider of repute.) At any rate, he did not waste his time, and arrived at the manse so full of botanical terms that he had considerable difficulty in making himself intelligible to the maid, who on this occasion, being cleaned up, opened the door to him in state.

      This was the beginning of the taming of the tiger. Gilbert preached the next forenoon, and pleased the Doctor greatly by the excellent taste of his opening remarks upon his text, which was, "To preach the gospel … and not to boast in another man's line of things made ready to our hand."

      The preacher, as a new and original departure, divided his subject into three heads, as followeth: First, "The Duty of Respect for Ecclesiastical Superiors"; second, "The Duty of Christian Liberality" (he had to drag this in neck and crop); and thirdly, "The Supreme Duty of Humility in the Young with respect to their Elders."

      While he was looking it over on Sunday morning Gilbert heartily confounded his friend СКАЧАТЬ