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

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СКАЧАТЬ towards him with her arms outstretched, and such a yearning of love on her face as I never saw before or since. The sullen lout by the fire, drowsed on unheeding.

      "Jessie!" cried the Stickit Minister, and with that fell into her arms. She held him there a long moment as it had been jealously, her head bent down upon his. Then she delivered him up to me, slowly and reluctantly.

      Henry Fraser put his hand on his heart and gave a great sob.

      "My brother is dead!" he said.

      But Jessie Loudon did not utter a word.

      GIBBY THE EEL, STUDENT IN DIVINITY

      Naturalists have often remarked how little resemblance there is between the young of certain animals and the adult specimen. Yonder tottering quadrangular arrangement of chewed string, remotely and inadequately connected at the upper corners, is certainly the young of the horse. But it does not even remotely suggest the war-horse sniffing up the battle from afar. This irregular yellow ball of feathers, with the steel-blue mask set beneath its half-opened eyelids, is most ridiculously unlike the magnificent eagle, which (in books) stares unblinded into the very eye of the noonday sun.

      In like manner the young of the learned professions are by no means like the full-fledged expert of the mysteries. If in such cases the child is the father of the man, the parentage is by no means apparent.

      To how many medical students would you willingly entrust the application of one square inch of sticking-plaster to a cut finger, or the care of a half-guinea umbrella? What surgeon would you not, in an emergency, trust with all you hold dear? You may cherish preferences and even prejudices, but as a whole the repute of the profession is above cavil.

      There is, perhaps, more continuity above the legal profession, but even there it is a notable fact that the older and more successful a lawyer is, the more modest you find him, and the more diffident of his own infallibility. Indeed, several of the most eminent judges are in this matter quite as other men.

      But of all others, the divinity student is perhaps the most misunderstood. He is wilfully misrepresented by those who ought to know him best. Nay, he misrepresents himself, and when he doffs tweeds and takes to collars which fasten behind and a long-skirted clerical coat, he is apt to disown his past self; and often succeeds in persuading himself that as he is now, diligent, sedate, zealous of good works, so was he ever.

      Only sometimes, when he has got his Sunday sermons off his mind and two or three of the augurs are gathered together, will the adult clerk in holy orders venture to lift the veil and chew the cud of ancient jest and prank not wholly sanctified.

      Now there ought to be room, in a gallery which contains so many portraits of ministers, for one or two Students of Divinity, faithfully portrayed.2

      And of these the first and chief is Mr. Gilbert Denholm, Master of Arts, Scholar in Theology – to his class-fellows more colloquially and generally known as "Gibby the Eel."

      At college we all loved Gilbert. He was a merry-hearted youth, and his mere bodily presence was enough to make glad the countenances of his friends. His father was a minister in the West with a large family to bring up, which he effected with success upon a stipend of surprising tenuity. So it behoved Gilbert to keep himself at college by means of scholarships and private tuition. His pupils had a lively time of it.

      Yet his only fault obvious to the world was a certain light-headed but winsome gaiety, and a tendency to jokes of the practical kind. I used often to restrain Gilbert's ardour by telling him that if he did not behave himself and walk more seemly, he would get his bursary taken from him by the Senatus.

      This would recall Gilbert to himself when almost everything else had failed.

      Part of Gilbert's personal equipment was the certain lithe slimness of figure which gained him the title of "Gibby the Eel," and enabled him to practise many amusing pranks in the class-room. He would have made an exceptionally fine burglar, for few holes were too small and no window too secure for Gilbert to make his exits and entrances by. Without going so far as to say that he could wriggle himself through an ordinary keyhole, I will affirm that if anybody ever could, that person was Gilbert Denholm.

      One of the most ordinary of his habits was that of wandering here and there throughout the classroom during the hour of lecture, presuming upon the professor's purblindness or lack of attention. You would be sitting calmly writing a letter, drawing caricatures in your note-book, or otherwise improving your mind with the most laudable imitation of attention, when suddenly, out of the black and dusty depths about your feet would arise the startling apparition of Gibby the Eel. He would nod, casually inquire how you found yourself this morning, and inform you that he only dropped in on his way up to Bench Seventeen to see Balhaldie, who owed him a shilling.

      "Well, so long!" Again he would nod pleasantly, and sink into the unknown abyss beneath the benches as noiselessly and unobtrusively as a smile fades from a face.

      Sometimes, however, when in wanton mood, his progress Balhaldie-wards could be guessed at by the chain of "Ouchs" and "Ohs" which indicated his subterranean career. The suddenness with which Gilbert could awaken to lively interest the most somnolent and indifferent student, by means of a long brass pin in the calf of the leg, had to be felt to be appreciated. Thereupon ensued the sound of vigorous kicking, but generally by the time the injured got the range of his unseen foe, Gilbert could be observed two or three forms above intently studying a Greek Testament wrong side up, and looking the picture of meek reproachful innocence.

      In no class could Gilbert use so much freedom of errancy as in that of the venerable Professor Galbraith. Every afternoon this fine old gentleman undertook to direct our studies in New Testament exegesis, and incidentally afforded his students an hour of undisturbed repose after the more exciting labours of the day.

      No one who ever studied under Dr. Simeon Galbraith will forget that gentle droning voice overhead, that full-orbed moon-like countenance, over which two smaller moons of beamy spectacle seemed to be in perpetual transit, and in especial he will remember that blessed word "Hermeneutics," of which (it is said) there was once one student who could remember the meaning. He died young, much respected by all who knew him. Dreamily the great word came to you, soothing and grateful as mother's lullaby, recurrent as the wash of a quiet sea upon a beach of softest sand. "Gentlemen, I will now proceed to call your attention … to the study of Hermeneutics … Hermeneut … Gegenbauer has affirmed … but in my opeenion, gentlemen … Hermeneutics…!" (Here you passed from the subconscious state into Nirvana.)

      And so on, and so on, till the college bell clanged in the quadrangle, and it was time to file out for a wash and brush-up before dinner in hall.

      Upon one afternoon every week, Professor Galbraith read with his students the "Greek Oreeginal." He prescribed half-a-dozen chapters of "Romans" or "Hebrews," and expected us to prepare them carefully. I verily believe that he imagined we did. This shows what a sanguine and amiable old gentlemen he was. The beamy spectacle belied him not.

      The fact was that we stumbled through our portions by the light of nature, aided considerably by a class copy of an ingenious work known by the name of "Bagster," in which every Greek word had the English equivalent marked in plain figures underneath, and all the verbs fully parsed at the foot of the page.

      The use of this was not considered wicked, because, like the early Christians, in Professor Galbraith's class we had all things common. This was our one point of resemblance to the primitive Church.

      One day the Doctor, peering over his brown leather folio, discerned the meek face and beaming smile of Gilbert the Eel in the centre of Bench One, immediately beneath him.

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