Chapter 2

RUNS ALONGSIDE THE MAKING OF A MINISTER.

On the east coast of Scotland, hidden, as if in a quarry, at the
foot of cliffs that may one day fall forward, is a village called
Harvie. So has it shrunk since the day when I skulked from it that
I hear of a traveller's asking lately at one of its doors how far
he was from a village; yet Harvie throve once and was celebrated
even in distant Thrums for its fish. Most of our weavers would
have thought it as unnatural not to buy harvies in the square on
the Muckle Friday, as to let Saturday night pass without laying in
a sufficient stock of halfpennies to go round the family twice.

Gavin was born in Harvie, but left it at such an early age that he
could only recall thatched houses with nets drying on the roofs,
and a sandy shore in which coarse grass grew. In the picture he
could not pick out the house of his birth, though he might have
been able to go to it had he ever returned to the village. Soon he
learned that his mother did not care to speak of Harvie, and
perhaps he thought that she had forgotten it too, all save one
scene to which his memory still guided him. When his mind wandered
to Harvie, Gavin saw the door of his home open and a fisherman
enter, who scratched his head and then said, "Your man's drowned,
missis." Gavin seemed to see many women crying, and his mother
staring at them with a face suddenly painted white, and next to
hear a voice that was his own saying, "Never mind, mother; I'll be
a man to you now, and I'll need breeks for the burial." But Adam
required no funeral, for his body lay deep in the sea.

Gavin thought that this was the tragedy of his mother's life, and
the most memorable event of his own childhood. But it was neither.
When Margaret, even after she came to Thrums, thought of Harvie,
it was not at Adam's death she shuddered, but at the recollection
of me.

It would ill become me to take a late revenge on Adam Dishart now
by saying what is not true of him. Though he died a fisherman he
was a sailor for a great part of his life, and doubtless his
recklessness was washed into him on the high seas, where in his
time men made a crony of death, and drank merrily over dodging it
for another night. To me his roars of laughter without cause were
as repellent as a boy's drum; yet many faces that were long in my
company brightened at his coming, and women, with whom, despite my
yearning, I was in no wise a favorite, ran to their doors to
listen to him as readily as to the bell-man. Children scurried
from him if his mood was savage, but to him at all other times,
while me they merely disregarded. There was always a smell of the
sea about him. He had a rolling gait, unless he was drunk, when he