O. Douglas

“ I haven't been forty years a minister's wife without learning patience, but it would have done me all the good in the world to take that woman by her expensive fur coat and walk her rapidly out of the room. ”

“ Macdonald. She was so absurdly grateful she made me cry. You would have thought no one had ever given her a gift before."
"The world," said Jean, "is divided into two classes, the givers and the takers. Nothing so touches and pleases and surprises a 'giver' as to receive a gift. The 'takers' are too busy standing on their hind legs (like Peter at tea-time) looking wistfully for the next bit of cake to be very appreciative of the biscuit of the moment."
"Bless me!" said Pamela, "Jean among the cynics!" ”

“ Mr. Dickson stayed to luncheon, and was treated with great respect by Jock and Mhor. The latter had a notion that somewhere the lawyer had a cave in which he kept Jean's fortune, great casks of gold pieces and trunks of precious stones, and that any lack of manners on his part might lose Jean her inheritance. He was disappointed to find him dressed like any ordinary man. He had had a dim hope that he would look like Ali Baba and wear a turban.
After Mr. Dickson had finished saying all he had come to say, and had gone to catch his train, Jean started out to call on her minister. ”

“ I shouldn't think we would ever want to live in London, it's such a noisy, overcrowded place, and there are always hotels.... I'm quite content with The Rigs. It's such a comfort to feel that it is our own."
"It's a charming cottage," Mr. Dickson said, "but won't you want something roomier? Something more imposing for an heiress?"
"I hate imposing things," Jean said, very earnestly "I want to go on just as we were doing, only with no scrimping, and more treats for the boys. We've only got £350 a year now, and the thought of all this money dazes me. ”

“ He had been a minister in Priorsford for close on forty years and had never had more than £250 of a salary, and on this he and his wife had brought up four sons who looked, as an old woman in the church said, "as if they'd aye got their meat." There had always been a spare place at every meal for any casual guest, and a spare bedroom looking over Tweed that was seldom empty. ”

“ Macdonald stared into the fire with tear-blurred eyes and said: "I sometimes wonder if they died in vain. If this is the new world it's a far worse one than the old. Class hatred, discontent, wild extravagance in some places, children starving in others, women mad for pleasure, and the dead forgotten already except by the mothers—the mothers who never to their dying day will see a fresh-faced boy without a sword piercing their hearts and a cry rising to their lips, 'My son! ”

“ She turned to her visitors and explained: "John is a regular old maid about his writing-table; everything must be so tidy and unspotted."
"Well, I can't understand," said her husband, "why anyone so neat handed as you are should be such a filthy creature with ink. You seem positively to sling it about."
"Well," said Mrs. Macdonald, changing the subject "I like your idea of helping ministers, Jean. I've often thought if I had the means I would know how to help. A cheque to a minister in a city-charge for a holiday; a cheque to pay a doctor's bill and ease things a little for a worn-out wife. ”

“ It's odd how people will assume one is a cad! When Mhor's mother died (his father had died before) he came to us—his mother trusted him to us—and people kept saying, 'Why should you take him? He has no claim on you.' As if Mhor wasn't the best gift we ever got.... And when you have divided it, I wonder if you would take a tenth off each share? We were brought up to give a tenth of any money we had to God. I'm almost sure the boys would give it themselves. I think they would, but perhaps it would be safer to take it off first and put it aside."
Jean looked very straight at the lawyer. ”

“ Their shares will accumulate, of course, and be very much larger when they get them."
"But I don't want that," said Jean. "I want the interest on the money to be added to the tenths that are laid away. It's better to give more than the strict tenth. It's so horrid to be shabby about giving."
"And what are the 'tenths,' to be used for?"
"I'll tell you about that later, if I may. I'm not quite sure myself. I shall have to ask Mr. Macdonald, our minister. He'll know. I'm never quite certain whether the Bible means the tenth to be given in charity, or kept entirely for churches and missions.... ”

“ Nothing can ever dim that sacrifice. The country's dead will save the country as they saved it before. Those young lives have gone in front to light the way for us."
Mrs. Macdonald took up her sock again with a long sigh.
"I wish I could comfort myself with thoughts as you can, John, but I never had any mind. No, Jean, you needn't protest so politely. I'm a good housewife and I admit my shortbread is 'extra,' as Duncan used to say. Duncan was very sorry as a small boy that he had left heaven and come to stay with us. ”

“ Many people are so dull and apathetic that they never seem more than half alive, so they don't leave much of a gap when they go. But Duncan—— The Macdonalds are brave, but I think living to them is just a matter of getting through now. The end of the day will mean Duncan. I am glad you thought about getting the miniature done. You do have such nice thoughts, Pamela."
The Macdonalds' manse stood on the banks of Tweed, a hundred yards or so below Peel Tower, a square house of grey stone in a charming garden.
Mr. Macdonald loved his garden and worked in it diligently. ”

“ Macdonald, "that's a really sensible idea, Jean. There's no manner of doubt that the small salaries of the clergy are a crying scandal. I don't like ministers to wail in the papers about it, but the laymen should wail until things are changed. Ministers don't enter the Church for the loaves and fishes, but the labourer is worthy of his hire, and they must have enough to live on decently. Living has doubled. ”

“ Sad people came to her because she sighed with them and never tried to cheer them; dull people came to her because she was never in offensive high spirits or in a boastful mood—not even when her sons had done something particularly striking—and happy people came to her, for, though she sighed and warned them that nothing lasted in this world, her eyes shone with pleasure, and her interest was so keen that every detail could be told and discussed and gloated over with the comfortable knowledge that Mrs. ”