Long ago, in the days when our caged blackbirds never saw a king's soldier without whistlingimpudently, "Come ower the water to Charlie," a minister of Thrums was to be married, butsomething happened, and he remained a bachelor. Then, when he was old, he passed in our squarethe lady who was to have been his wife, and her hair was white, but she, too, was still unmarried.The meeting had only one witness, a weaver, and he said solemnly afterwards, "They didna speak,but they just gave one another a look, and I saw the love-light in their een." No more is rememberedof these two, no being now living ever saw them, but the poetry that was in the soul of a batteredweaver makes them human to us for ever.It is of another minister I am to tell, but only to those who know that light when they see it. I amnot bidding good-bye to many readers, for though it is true that some men, of whom Lord Rintoulwas one, live to an old age without knowing love, few of us can have met them, and of women soincomplete I never heard.Gavin Dishart was barely twenty-one when he and his mother came to Thrums, light-hearted likethe traveller who knows not what awaits him at the bend of the 2 road. It was the time of year whenthe ground is carpeted beneath the firs with brown needles, when split-nuts patter all day from thebeech, and children lay yellow corn on the dominie's desk to remind him that now they are neededin the fields. The day was so silent that carts could be heard rumbling a mile away. All Thrums wasout in its wynds and closes-a few of the weavers still in knee-breeches-to look at the new AuldLicht minister. I was there too, the dominie of Glen Quharity, which is four miles from Thrums; andheavy was my heart as I stood afar off so that Gavin's mother might not have the pain of seeing me.I was the only one in the crowd who looked at her more than at her son.

The Little Minister: Large Print and Bath Classics - Peter Pan (Illustrated Children's Classics)

Bath Classics - Peter Pan (Illustrated Children's Classics)

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