The Complete Thrums Trilogy: Auld Licht Idylls, A Window in Thrums & The Little Minister (Illustrated Edition). J. M. Barrie

a small man, but it was the burly farmer who shook at sight of the gates standing out white in the night. White gates have an evil name still, and Muckle Haws was full of horrors as he drew near them, clinging to Johnny's arm. It was on such a night, he would remember, that he saw the White Lady go through the gates greeting sorely, with a dead bairn in her arms, while water kelpies laughed and splashed in the pools, and the witches danced in a ring round Broken Buss. That very night twelve months ago the packman was murdered at Broken Buss, and Easie Pettie hanged herself on the stump of a tree. Last night there were ugly sounds from the quarry of Croup, where the bairn lies buried, and it's not mous (canny) to be out at such a time. The farmer had seen spectre maidens walking round the ruined castle of Darg, and the castle all lit up with flaring torches, and dead knights and ladies sitting in the halls at the wine-cup, and the devil himself flapping his wings on the ramparts.

      When the debates were political, two members with the gift of song fired the blood with their own poems about taxation and the depopulation of the Highlands, and by selling these songs from door to door they made their livelihood.

      Books and pamphlets were brought into the town by the flying stationers, as they were called, who visited the square periodically carrying their wares on their backs, except at the Muckly, when they had their stall and even sold books by auction. The flying stationer best known to Thrums was Sandersy Riach, who was stricken from head to foot with the palsy, and could only speak with a quaver in consequence. Sandersy brought to the members of the club all the great books he could get second hand, but his stock-in-trade was Thrummy Cap and Akenstaff, the Fishwives of Buckhaven, the Devil upon Two Sticks, Gilderoy, Sir James the Rose, the Brownie of Badenoch, the Ghaist of Firenden, and the like. It was from Sandersy that Tammas Haggart bought his copy of Shakspeare, whom Mr. Dishart could never abide. Tammas kept what he had done from his wife, but Chirsty saw a deterioration setting in and told the minister of her suspicions. Mr. Dishart was newly placed at the time and very vigorous, and the way he shook the truth out of Tammas was grand. The minister pulled Tammas the one way and Gavin pulled him the other, but Mr. Dishart was not the man to be beaten, and he landed Tammas in the Auld Licht kirk before the year was out. Chirsty buried Shakspeare in the yard.

      A Window in Thrums

       Table of Contents

       Table of Contents

       Chapter I. The House on the Brae

       Chapter II. On the Track of the Minister

       Chapter III. Preparing to Receive Company

       Chapter IV. Waiting for the Doctor

       Chapter V. A Humorist on His Calling

       Chapter VI. Dead This Twenty Years

       Chapter VII. The Statement of Tibbie Birse

       Chapter VIII. A Cloak with Beads

       Chapter IX. The Power of Beauty

       Chapter X. A Magnum Opus

       Chapter XI. The Ghost Cradle

       Chapter XII. The Tragedy of a Wife

       Chapter XIII. Making the Best of It

       Chapter XIV. Visitors at the Manse

       Chapter XV. How Gavin Birse Put It to Mag Lownie

       Chapter XVI. The Son from London

       Chapter XVII. A Home for Geniuses

       Chapter XVIII. Leeby and Jamie

       Chapter XIX. A Tale of a Glove

       Chapter XX. The Last Night

       Chapter XXI. Jess Left Alone

       Chapter XXII. Jamie's Home-Coming