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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.[#]

[#] These studies I wrote down during certain winters, when, to please my mother, I made a futile attempt to prepare myself "to wag my head in a pulpit." Saving a certain prolixity of statement (which the ill-affected call long-windedness), they were all I carried away with me when I resolved to devote myself to the medical profession.—A. McQ.

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.

"Ah! Mr. Denholm, will you read for us this morning—beginning at the 29th verse—of the chapter under consideration?"

And he subsided expectantly into his lecture.

Up rose Gilbert, signalling wildly with one hand for the class "Bagster" to be passed to him, and meantime grasping at the first Testament he could see about him. By the time he had read the Greek of half-a-dozen verses, the sharpness of the trouble was overpast. He held in his hands the Key of Knowledge, and translated and parsed like a Cunningham Fellow—or any other fellow.

"Vairy well, Mr. Denholm; vairy well indeed. You may now sit down while I proceed to expound the passage!"

Whereupon Gibby the Eel ungratefully pitched the faithful "Bagster" on the bench and disappeared under the same himself on a visit to Nicholson McFeat, who sat in the middle of the class-room.

For five minutes—ten—fifteen, the gentle voice droned on from the rostrum, the word "Hermeneutics" discharging itself at intervals with the pleasing gurgle of an intermittent spring. Then the Professor returned suddenly to his Greek Testament.

"Mr. Denholm, you construed vairy well last time. Be good enough to continue at the place you left off. Mr. Denholm—where is Mister—Mister Den—holm?"

And the moon-like countenance rose from its eclipse behind six volumes of Owen (folio edition), while the two smaller moons in permanent transit directed themselves upon the vacant place in Bench One, from which Gibby the Eel had construed so glibly with the efficient aid of "Bagster."

"Mister—Mist—er Denholm?"

The Professor knew that he was absent-minded, but (if the expression be allowable) he could have sworn——.

"I am here, sir!"

Gibby the Eel, a little shame-faced and rumpled as to hair, was standing plump in the very middle of the class-room, in the place where he had been endeavouring to persuade Nick McFeat to lend him his dress clothes "to go to a conversazione in," which request Nick cruelly persisted in refusing, alleging first, that he needed the garments himself, and secondly, that the Eel desired to go to no "conversazione," but contrariwise to take a certain Madge Robertson to the theatre.

At this moment the fateful voice of the Professor broke in upon them just as they were rising to the height of their great argument.

"Mister—Den—holm, will you go on where you left off?"

Gibby rose, signalling wildly for "Bagster," and endeavouring to look as if he had been a plant of grace rooted and grounded on that very spot. Professor Galbraith gazed at Gibby in situ, then at the place formerly occupied by him, tried hard to orient the matter in his head, gave it up, and bade the translation proceed.

But "Bagster" came not, and Gilbert did not distinguish himself this time. Indeed, far from it.

"Will you parse the first verb, Mr. Denholm—no, not that word! That has usually been considered a substantive, Mr. Denholm—the next word, ah, yes!"

"The first aorist, active of—confound you fellows, where's that 'Bagster'? I call it dashed mean—*yes, sir, it is connected with the former clause by the particle—*have you not found that book yet? Oh, you beasts!"

(The italics, it is hardly necessary to say, were also spoken in italics, and were not an integral part of Gibby's examination as it reached the ear of Professor Galbraith.)

"Ah, that will do, Mr. Denholm—not so well—not quite so well, sir—yet" (kindly) "not so vairy ill either."

And Gilbert sat down to resume the discussion of the dress clothes. By this time, of course, he considered himself quite safe from further molestation. The Professor had never been known to call up a man thrice in one day. So, finding Nick McFeat obdurate in the matter of the dress suit, Gilbert announced his intention of visiting Kenneth Kennedy, who, he said pointedly, was not a selfish and unclean animal of the kind abhorred by Jews, but, contrariwise, a gentleman—one who would lend dress clothes for the asking. And Kennedy's were better clothes, any way, and had silk linings. Furthermore, Nick need not think it, he (Mr. Gilbert Denholm) would not demean himself to put on his (Mr. McFeat's) dirty "blacks," which had been feloniously filched from a last year's scarecrow that had been left out all the winter. And furthermore, he (the said Gilbert) would take Madge Robertson to the theatre in spite of him, and what was more, cut Nick McFeat out as clean as a leek.

At this the latter laughed scornfully, affirming that the grapes had a faintly sub-acid flavour, and bade Gibby go his way.

Gibby went, tortuously and subterraneously worming his way to the highest seats in the synagogue, where Kenneth Kennedy, M.A., reposed at full length upon a vacant seat, having artistically bent a Highland cloak over a walking-stick to represent scholastic meditation, if perchance the kindly spectacle of the Professor should turn in his direction. Gibby gazed rapturously on his friend's sleep, contemplating him, as once in the Latmian cave Diana gazed upon Endymion. He was proceeding to ink his friend's face preparatory to upsetting him on the floor, when he remembered the dress suit just in time to desist.

"Eel, you are a most infamous pest—can't you let a fellow alone? What in the world do you want now?"

Whereupon, with countenance of triple brass, Gibby entered into the question of the dress suit with subtlety and tact. There never was so good a chap as Kennedy, never one so generous. He (G.D.) would do as much for him again, and he would bring it back the next day, pressed by a tailor.

Kennedy, however, was not quite so enthusiastic. There are several points of view in matters of this kind. Kenneth Kennedy did not, of course, care "a dump" about Madge Robertson, but he had the best interests of his silk-lined dress coat at heart.

"That's all very well, Eel," he said, raising himself reluctantly to the perpendicular; "but you know as well as I do that the last time I lent it to you, you let some wax drop on the waistcoat, right on the pocket, and I have never been able to get it out since——"

Suddenly the pair became conscious that the gentle hum of exegetical divinity from the rostrum had ceased. The word "Hermeneutics" no longer soothed and punctuated their converse at intervals of five minutes, like the look-out's "All's well" on a ship at sea.

"Ah, Mis—ter Den—holm, perhaps you have recovered yourself by this time. Be good enough to continue where you left off—Mis—ter Den—holm—Mister Denholm—where in the world is Mr. Denholm?"

The spectacles were hardly beaming now. A certain shrewd suspicion mixed with the wonder in their expression, as Dr. Galbraith gazed from the Eel's position One to position Two, and back again to position One. Both were empty as the cloudless empyrean. His wonder culminated when Gilbert was finally discovered in position Three, high on the sky-line of Bench Twenty-four!

How Gilbert acquitted himself on this occasion it is perhaps better not to relate. I will draw a kindly veil over the lamentable tragedy. It is sufficient to say that he lost his head completely—as completely even as the aforesaid Miss Madge Robertson could have wished.

And all though the disastrous exhibition the Professor did not withdraw his gaze from the wretched Eel, but continued to rebuke him, as it seemed, for the astral and insubstantial nature of his body.

No better proof can be adduced that the Eel had become temporarily deranged, than the fact that even now, when it was obvious that the long latent suspicions of the Gentle Hermeneut were at last aroused, he refused to abide in his breaches; but, scorning all entreaty, and even Kennedy's unconditioned promise of the dress suit, he proceeded to crawl down the gallery steps, in order to regain position Number One, in the front seat under the Professor's very nose.

Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat.

Meanwhile the class, at first raised to a state of ecstatic enjoyment by the Eel's misfortunes, then growing a little anxious lest he should go too far, was again subsiding to its wonted peaceful hum, like that of a vast and well-contented bumble-bee.

Suddenly we became aware that the Professor was on his feet in the midst of a stern and awful silence.

"My eye has fallen," he began solemnly, "on what I do not expect to see. I hope the—gentleman will remember where he is—and who I am!"

During the pronouncement of this awful allocution the professorial arm was extended, and a finger, steady as the finger of Fate, pointed directly at the unhappy Gibby, who, prone in the dust, appeared to be meditating a discourse upon the text, "I am a worm and no man!"

His head was almost on the level of the floor and his limbs extended far up the gallery stairs. To say that his face was fiery-red gives but a faint idea of its colour, while a black streak upon his nose proved that the charwomen of the college were not a whit more diligent than the students thereof.

What happened after this is a kind of maze. I suppose that Gibby regained a seat somewhere, and that the lecture proceeded after a fashion; but I do not know for certain. Bursts of unholy mirth forced their way through the best linen handkerchiefs, rolled hard and used as gags.

But there grew up a feeling among many that though doubtless there was humour in the case, the Eel had gone a little too far, and if Professor Galbraith were genuinely angered he might bring the matter before the Senatus, with the result that Gilbert would not only lose his bursary, but be sent down as well, to his father's sorrow and his own loss.

So when the class was at last over, half-a-dozen of us gathered round Gibby and represented to him that he must go at once to the retiring-room and ask the Professor's pardon.

At first and for long the Eel was recalcitrant. He would not go. What was he to say? We instructed him. We used argument, appeal, persuasion. We threatened torture. Finally, yielding to those heavier battalions on the side of which Providence is said to fight, Gibby was led to the door with a captor at each elbow. We knocked; he entered. The door was shut behind him, but not wholly. Half-a-dozen ears lined the crack at intervals, like limpets clinging to a smooth streak on a tidal rock. We could not hear the Eel's words. Only a vague murmur reached us, and I doubt if much more reached Professor Galbraith. The Eel stopped and there was a pause. We feared its ill omen.

"Poor Eel, the old man's going to report him!" we whispered to each other.

And then we heard the words of the Angelical Scholiast.

"Shake hands, Mr. Denholm. If, as ye say, this has been a lesson to you, it has been no less a lesson to me. Let us both endeavour to profit by it, unto greater diligence and seemliness in our walk and conversation. We will say no more about the matter, if you please, Mr. Denholm."

* * * * *

We cheered the old man as he went out, till he waved a kindly and tolerant hand back at us, and there was more than a gleam of humour in the kindly spectacles, as if our gentle Hermeneut were neither so blind nor yet so dull in the uptake as we had been accustomed to think him.

As for the Eel, he became a man from that day, and, to a limited extent, put away childish things—though his heart will remain ever young and fresh. His story is another story, and so far as this little study goes it is enough to say that when at last the aged Professor of Hermeneutics passed to the region where all things are to be finally explicated, it was Gilbert Denholm who got up the memorial to his memory, which was subscribed to by every student without exception he had ever had. And it was he who wrote Dr. Galbraith's epitaph, of which the last line runs:

"GENTLE, A PEACE-MAKER, A LOVER OF GOOD AND OF GOD."

DOCTOR GIRNIGO'S ASSISTANT

"Off, ye lendings!" said Gibby the Eel to his heather-mixture knicker-bocker suit, on the day when his Presbytery of Muirlands licensed him to preach the gospel.

And within the self-same hour the Reverend Gilbert Denholm, M.A., Probationer, in correct ministerial garb, had the honour of dining with the Presbytery, and of witnessing the remarkable transformation which overtakes that august body as soon as it dips its collective spoon in the official soup.

I knew a Presbytery once which tried to lunch on cold coffee and new bread. The survivors unanimously took to drink.

But the Presbytery of Muirlands were sage fathers and brethren, and they knew better than that. They dined together in a reasonable manner at the principal inn of the place. An enthusiast, who suggested that they should transfer their custom to the new Temperance Hotel up near the railway station, was asked if he had sent in his returns on Life and Work—and otherwise severely dealt with.

Gilbert had been remitted to the Presbytery of Muirlands from his own West Country one of Burnestown, because he had been appointed assistant to the Reverend Doctor Girnigo of Rescobie; and it was considered more satisfactory that the Presbytery within whose bounds he was to labour, should examine him concerning his diligence and zeal.

So they asked him all the old posers which had made the teeth of former examinees of the Presbytery of Muirlands chatter in their heads. But the Eel's teeth did not chatter. He had got a rough list from a friend who had been that way before, and so passed the bar with flying colours. The modest way in which the new brother (unattached) behaved himself at dinner completed Gibby's conquest of the Brethren—with the single but somewhat important exception of the Reverend Doctor Joseph Girnigo of Rescobie, Gilbert's future chief.

It was the cross of Dr. Girnigo's life that his session compelled him to engage an assistant. Dr. Girnigo felt that here were three hundred pieces of silver (or more accurately, £60 sterling) which ought to have been given to the poor—that is, to the right breeches' pocket of Joseph Girnigo—instead of being squandered in providing such a thorn in the flesh within the parish as a licensed assistant.

Dr. Girnigo was in the habit of saying, whenever he had made it too hot for his acting assistant, that he would rather look after three parishes than one probationer. At first the engaging and dismission of these unfortunate young men had been placed unreservedly in the Doctor's hands; but as the affair assumed more and more the appearance and proportions of a mere procession to and from the railway station, the members of Session were compelled to assume the responsibility themselves. So long as the Doctor's sway continued unchallenged, the new assistant usually arrived in Nether Balhaldie's "machine" on Saturday night, and departed on Tuesday morning very early in the gig belonging to Upper Balhaldie. He preached on Sabbath, and Monday was spent in Dr. Girnigo's study, where it was explained to him: first, that he knew nothing; secondly, that what he thought he knew was worse than nothing; thirdly, that there is nothing more hateful than a vain pretence of earthly learning; and fourthly, that Paul and Silas knew nothing of "Creeticism." No, they were better employed—aye, and it would be telling the young men of the day—the conclusion of the whole matter being that the present victim would never do at all for the parish of Rescobie and had better go.

He went, in Upper Balhaldie's gig, and Watty Learmont, the tenant thereof, who could be trusted to know, said that the rejected probationers very seldom engaged in prayer (to call prayer) on the road to the station. I do not know what Watty meant to insinuate, but that is what he said. He had that mode of speech to perfection which consists in saying one thing and giving the impression that the speaker means another.

But it was felt that this was a state of affairs which could not continue. It amounted, indeed, to nothing less than a scandal that the Session should be paying £60 for an assistant, and that at the end of the year eight of these should only have spent exactly twenty-seven days in the parish, while the remaining three hundred and thirty-eight days had been occupied by the Doctor in filling the vacancies he had himself created. Besides, since he always insisted on a week's trial without salary when he engaged his man (in order, as he said, to discover where there was a likelihood of the parties being mutually satisfied), the shrewd business men of the Session saw more than a probability of their good and hardly gathered sixty "notes" still remaining intact in the possession of their minister.

It was, however, the affair of the prayer-meeting which brought the matter to a head. For after all, such hard-headed bargain-makers as Learmont, Senior of Balhaldie, and his coadjutors on the Session, could not help having a sort of respect for the Doctor's business qualities. But they could not bear to be made a laughing stock of in the market of Drumfern.

"What's this I hear aboot your new helper's prayer-meetin' up at Rescobie?" Cochrane of Tatierigs cried one Wednesday across the mart ring to Upper Balhaldie. "Is't true that that minister o' yours broke it up wi' a horse-whup?"

No, it was not true. But there was enough of truth in it to make the members of Rescobie Session nervous of public appearances for a long time, indeed till the affair was forgotten.

The truth was that during the Doctor's absence at the house of his married son in Drumfern, Mr. Killigrew, a soft-voiced young man, who, being exceedingly meek, had been left in charge of the parish, thought it would be a surprise for his chief if he started a prayer-meeting on Wednesday evenings in the village schoolhouse. He pictured to himself his principal's delight when he should hand over the new departure as a going concern. So he made a house-to-house visitation of Rescobie village and neighbourhood, this young man with the soft voice. The popular appeal was favourable. He went round and saw the school-mistress. She was fond of young men with soft voices (and hats). She readily consented to lend her harmonium, and to lead the singing from a certain popular hymn-book.

The first meeting was an unqualified success, and the young man promptly began a series of rousing addresses on the "Pilgrim's Progress." There were to be thirty in all. But alas, for the vanity of human schemes, the second address (on the Slough of Despond) was scarcely under weigh when, like an avenging host, or Cromwell entering the Long Parliament, the Doctor strode into the midst, booted and spurred, as he had ridden over all the way from Drumfern. He had a riding-whip in his hand, which was the foundation of the Tatierigs story, but there is no record that he used it on any in the meeting.

The services closed without the benediction, and as the Doctor wrath fully clicked the key in the lock, he said that he would see the school-mistress in the morning.

Then he turned to the young man in the soft hat. The remains left Rescobie early next morning in Upper Balhaldie's gig.

Since this date it was enough to call out to a Rescobie man, "Ony mair Pilgrims up your way?" in order to have him set his dogs on you or wrathfully bring down his herd's crook upon your crown.

Being thus stirred to action, the Session wrestled with Dr. Girnigo, and prevailing by the unanswerable argument of the purse-strings, it took the appointment and dismission of the "helpers" into its own hands.

So Dr. Girnigo had to try other tactics. Usually he gave the unfortunate "helper" delivered into his hands no peace night nor day, till in despair he threw up his appointment, and shook the Rescobie dust off the soles of his feet.

First (under the new regime) came Alexander Fairbody, a thoughtful, studious lad, whom the Doctor set to digging top-dressing into his garden till his hands were blistered. He would not allow him to preach, and as to praying, if he wanted to do that he could go to his bedroom. So Mr. Fairbody endured hardness for ten days, and then resigned in a written communication, alleging as a reason that he had come to Rescobie as to work in a spiritual and not in a material vineyard. The Doctor burked the document, and the Reverend Robert Begg reigned in the stead of Alexander Fairbody, resigned for cause.

Mr. Begg was athletic. Him Dr. Girnigo set to the work of arranging his old sermons, seven barrels full. He was to catalogue them under eighteen heads, and be prepared to give his reasons in every case. The first three classes were—"Sermons Enforcing the Duty of Respect for Ecclesiastical Superiors," "Sermons upon Christian Giving," and "Sermons Inculcating Humility in the Young." The Reverend Robert Begg would have enjoyed the digging of the garden. He stood just one full week of the sermon-arranging. He declared that sixteen of the eighteen classes were cross divisions, and that the task of looking through the written matter permanently enfeebled his intellect. Sympathetic friends consoled him with the reflection that nobody would ever find out.

On the second Wednesday after his appointment he departed, uttering sentiments which were a perfect guarantee of good faith (but which were manifestly not for publication) to Watty Learmont as he journeyed to the railway station in the Upper Balhaldie gig.

A new sun rose upon Rescobie with the coming of Gibby the Eel. He had known both of his predecessors at college, and he had pumped them thoroughly upon the life and doctrine of their former chief. In addition to which Gilbert had taken to him a suit of tweeds and a fishing-rod, and with a piece of bread and cheese in his pocket, and guile in his heart, he had gone up the Rescobie water, asking for drinks at the farmhouses on the way, much as he used to perambulate Professor Galbraith's class-room in his old, abandoned, unregenerate, sans-dog-collar days.

Hitherto the helper, a mere transient bird-of-passage, had lodged with Mistress Honeytongue, the wife of Hosea Honeytongue, the beadle and minister's man of Rescobie. This brought the youth, as it were, under the shadow of the manse, and what was more to the point, under the eye of the minister. But Gilbert Denholm had other aims.

He took rooms in the village, quite three-quarters of a mile from the manse, with one Mrs. Tennant, the widow of a medical man in the neighbourhood who had died without making adequate provision for his family. She had never taken a lodger before, but since his investiture in clericals the Eel had filled out to a handsome figure, and he certainly smiled a most irresistible smile as he stood on the doorstep.

Gilbert arrived late one Friday night in Rescobie, and speculation was rife in the parish as to whether he would preach on Sabbath or not. Most were of the negative opinion, but Watty Learmont, for reasons of his own, offered to wager a new hat that he would.

On Saturday morning Gilbert put on his longest tails and his doggiest collar and marched boldly up to the front door of the manse, with the general air of playing himself along the road upon war pipes. Perhaps, however, he was only whistling silently to keep his courage up.

"Is Miss Girnigo at home?" said he to the somewhat stern-visaged personage who opened the door.

"I am Miss Girnigo," said a sepulchral voice. (Miss Girnigo was suffering from the summer cold which used to be called a "hay fever.")

"Indeed—I might have known; how delightful!" said the Eel, now, alas! transformed into an old serpent; "I am so glad to find you at home!"

"I am always at home!" returned Miss Girnigo, keeping up a semblance of severity, but secretly mollified by the homage of Gibby's smile.

"Then I hope you will let me come here very often. I shall find it lonely in the village, but I thought it better to be near my work," said Gilbert; "I am staying with Mrs. Tennant, the doctor's widow. Do you know Mrs. Tennant?"

"Oh, yes," said Miss Girnigo, smiling for the first time; "she is one of my dearest friends. I often go there to tea."

"I love tea," said Gilbert, with enthusiasm; "Mrs. Tennant has invited me to take tea in her parlour in the afternoon as often as I like, but I was not expecting such a reward as this!"

Miss Girnigo was considerably 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 Begg for forgetting the other fifteen divisions of Dr. Girnigo's sermons.

"I could have made a much better appearance if that fellow Begg had had any sense!" he said to himself. "But" (with a sigh) "I must just do the best I can with these."

Nevertheless, Dr. Girnigo considered that Gibby had surpassed himself in his application. He showed how any good that he might do in the parish must not be set down to his credit, but to that of Another who had so long laboured among them; and how that he (the preacher), being but "as one entering upon another man's line of things," it behoved him above all things not to be boastful.

"A very sound address—quite remarkable in one so young!" was the Doctor's verdict as he met the Session after the close of Gilbert's first service.

The Session and congregation, however, did not approve quite so highly, having had a surfeit of similar teaching during the past forty years.

But Walter Learmont, senior (sad to tell it of an Elder), winked the sober eye and remarked to his intimates: "Bide a wee—he kens his way aboot, thon yin. He wad juist be drawin' the auld man's leg!"

At any rate, certain it is that after this auspicious beginning Gibby the Eel (M.A.) remained longer in Rescobie than all his predecessors put together.

But it was to Jemima Girnigo that he owed this.