22 The Little Minister

if to gossip with the well in the courtyard. The
garden was to the south, and was overfull of
gooseberry and currant bushes. It contained a
summer seat where strange things were soon to
happen.

Margaret would not even take off her bonnet
until she had seen through the manse and opened
all the presses. The parlour and kitchen were
down-stairs, and of the three rooms above, the
study was so small that Gavin’s predecessor could
touch each of its walls without shifting his posi-
tion. Every room save Margaret’s had long-
lidded beds, which close as if with shutters, but
hers was coff-fronted, or comparatively open,
with carving on the wood like the ornamentation
of coffins. Where there were children in a house
they liked to slope the boards of the closed-in
bed against the dresser, and play at sliding down
mountains on them.

But for many years there had been no children
in the manse. He in whose ways Gavin was to
attempt the heavy task of walking had been a
widower three months after his marriage, a man
narrow when he came to Thrums, but so large-
hearted when he left it that I, who know there is
good in all the world because of the lovable souls
I have met in this corner of it, yet cannot hope
that many are as near to God as he. The
most gladsome thing in the world is that few of
us fall very low; the saddest that, with such
capabilities, we seldom rise high. Of those who
stand perceptibly above their fellows I have
known very few; only Mr. Carfrae and two or
three women.