The Little Minister

9
CHAT EER. 4
THE LOVE - LIGHT

ONG ago, in the days when our caged black- |
L; birds never saw a king’s soldier without
whistling impudently, “Come ower the water
to Charlie,’ a minister of Thrums was to be mar-
ried, but something happened, and he remained
a bachelor. Then, when he was old, he passed in
our square the lady who was to have been his
wife, and her hair was white, but she, too, was
still unmarried. The meeting had only one wit-
ness, a weaver, and he said solemnly afterwards,
“ They didna speak, but they just gave one an-
other a look, and I saw the love-light in their
een.” No more is remembered of these two, no
being now living ever saw them, but the poetry
that was in the soul of a battered weaver 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 am not bidding good-bye to many readers, for
though it is true that some men, of whom Lord
Rintoul was one, live to an old age without

I