THE LITTLE MINISTER.*

THERE could hardly be better evidence of the reality of Mr. Barrie's powers than the charm exercised by his new story, in spite of the absurdity of its plot. It may be from some defect in the Southern imagination, but to us the heroine of The

• The Little Minister. By J. M. Carrie. London Cassell and Co.

Little Minister, who is the central figure of the story, the pivot round whom it all revolves, is even vexatiously impossible. A girl who is at once a lady and a gipsy of the fields, who is one minute the fiancée of a Peer, and the next a barefooted Egyptian, dancing with a tambourine in the streets of a Scotch fishing-village, who is all goodness and for ever lying, who is at home with all classes and an object of suspicion to all, who is full of wild blood and mad caprice, and falls in love with a bit of an " Auld-Licht "minister solely because of his virtues, is, an incredible and even preposterous figure. We can never forget her, or avoid the reflection that, for all Mr. Barrie may say, she could never have been there, or have done that, or have said, either as lady or as Egyptian, what she did say. The love of the Little Minister for her is like the love of a mortal for a kelpie, so unnatural and improbable, that the account of it gives an impression like that which would be produced by a book halt written in prose and half in wild snatches of lyric poetry. It jars throughout with the realism of the rest of the book, which is Mr. Barrie's true element. For he is realist first of all, in the healthiest and truest sense of the word. It has become a fashion to call him a humorist and a master of pathos ; but he is in truth a realist whose insight is so deep and his heart so broad, that he perceives alike the pathos and the humour—though more perhaps the pathos than the humour—which lie hidden in common events and common folk, especially when both are Scotch. He never manufactures either, as, for example, that half-forgotten genius Galt some- times permitted himself to do, but just sees them, and then describes them, often with a visible self-repression, as of one who could laugh or cry over what he narrates, but will keep an unmoved face, which is in its way the perfection of art. For any one with such a power to load himself with "the Egyptian," whom Scott himself could not have made possible any more than he made Fenella, is, we feel con- fident, a misdirection of power, great power, power so con- siderable that as he reads slowly on—Mr. Barrie's work will not bear skipping—even the critic by instinct feels himself carried away, forgets to be worried with the Egyptian un- reality, and at last, as he reads the chapter on the flaod which is the delivering catastrophe of the book, is ready to throw down his pencil, and ask how any man can deal with creative force except by acknowledging and submitting to it. Nothing that Mr. Barrie has written comes near that scene as evidence of the gift which no experience can bring. In the centre stands the Little Minister drowning, the flood eating away his little island in the marsh, his rival, whom he has given his life to save, by his side, Death not only present, but clutching at his throat, and around him his congregation, which had but just resolved to dismiss him, but is now half-mad with horror and the sense of powerlessness to help. The Little Minister, whose voice retains its metallic sonorousness, makes to these people as they cower peering through the intermittent mist, a final address ; and what is it ?—a prosaic will, the will of a poor man, with no pettiness of detail omitted. Impossible, you say, or grotesque. So be it, but what brings that choking into your throat, except the certainty that the Little Minister did say it, that it was the one thing he could have said, that every sentence of that almost sordid prose reveals to you, as to the congregation, that it is the Christian hero who is passing away —he is rescued at last—and in whom the love of justice, and insight into his flock, and loving consideration for all, have conquered not only the human fear which is foreign to his nature, but the thought for his own future which coming death brings to inferior natures so strongly home ? If that scene is not a triumph of genius, we do not know what geniva means as distinct from ability, and it is all the greater because if the reader took it alone, read it out by itself for example, its full meaning would hardly be perceived, might even be lost in the oddness, even grotesqueness, of the incident.

We are writing, rather late in the day, for those who have read the book, and have, therefore, no intention of telling its story, half-spoilt as it is by that Egyptian, or of discussing Mr. Barrie's success in treating an Enoch Arden incident, or of praising the wonderful force with which the Auld-Licht character, the strong, harsh Hebraism of the older Scotch, is brought out even while the author is describing men who, for all that sternness as of those who could have stoned Achan, have in them somewhere an incurable appreciation of, and power of developing, humour. The humour is repressed always in Mr. Barrie's work, repressed as it is in the village scene in Silas Marner, the one Shakespearian chapter George Eliot ever wrote; and is shown most frequently in the whole description of a character like " Wearyworld," the policeman who,

because be is a policeman, is boycotted by Thrums, and being thus mentally imprisoned in a solitary cell, is a useless police- man, owing to his craving hunger for a chat. So utter is his

misery at his 1 3olation, that if he were being hanged, a two. minutes' " crack " with the hangman would for those minutes

compensate him for all the horror of the situation. That seems, as we write, grotesque; but there must be plenty of Irishmen alive who know if it is true, and plenty of convicts who know from the experience of solitary confinement that, for some natures at least, it is absolutely exact. It is im- possible to extract such momentary glimpses as we get of Wearyworld, and there have been others than Mr. Barrie who could reveal character as it is revealed in the last four words of the following speech. The village Parliament thinks no woman would refuse a minister. "I once," said Snecky Hobart, knew a widow who did:—

" His name was Samson, and if it had been Tamson she would hae ta'en him. Ay, you may look, but it's true. Her name was Turnbull, and she had another gent after her, name o' Tibbets. She couldna make up her mind atween them, and for a while she just keeped them dangling on. Ay, but in the end she took Tibbets. And what, think you, was her reason ? As you ken, time grand folk has their initials on their spoons and nichtgowns. Ay, weel, she thocht it would be mair handy to take Tibbets, because if she had ta'en the minister the T's would have had to be changed to S's. It was thoctfu' o' her."

We prefer, in proof of our allegation that repression is of the very essence of Mr. Barrie's power, to quote the account of old Nanny's departure to the poorhouse. The poorhouse is a worse " come-down " in Scotch imagination than even in English, but Nanny could no longer maintain herself, and the Little Minister and the doctor arrived at her cottage to take her away respectably :—

" The door stood open, and Nanny was crouching against the opposite wall of the room, such a poor, dull kitchen, that you would have thought the furniture had still to be brought into it. The blanket and the piece of old carpet that was Nanny's coverlet were already packed in her box. The plate rack was empty. Only the round table and the two chairs, and the stools and some pans were being left behind. Well, Nanny,' the doctor said, trying to bluster, I have come, and you see Mr. Dishart is with me.' Nanny rose bravely. She knew the doctor was good to her, and she wanted to thank him. I have not seen a great deal of the world myself, but often the sweet politeness of the aged poor has struck me as beautiful. Nanny dropped a curtsey, an ungainly one

maybe, but it was an old woman giving the best she had Both men sat down, for they would have hurt Nanny by remaining standing. Some ministers would have known the right thing to sayto her, but Gavin dared not let himself speak. I have again to remind you that he was only one-and-twenty. I'm droughty, Nanny,' the doctor said, to give her something to do, and I would be obliged for a drink of water:—Nanny hastened to the pan that stood behind her door, but stopped before she reached it. It's toom,' she said,' I—I didna think I needed to fill it this morning! She caught the doctor's eye, and could only half-restrain a sob. I couldna help that,' she said, apologetically. • I'm richt angry at myself for being so ungrateful like.'—The doctor thought it best that they should depart at once. He rose.—' Oh, no, doctor,'

cried Nanny in alarm.—' But you are ready? Ay,' she said, 'I have been ready this twa hours, but you micht wait a minute. Hendry Munn and Andrew Allardyce is coming yont the road, and they would see me.'—' Wait, doctor,' Gavin said.—' Thank you kindly, Sir,' answered Nanny.—' But Nanny,' the doctor said, 'you must remember what I told you about the poo—, about the place you are going to. It is a fine house, and you will be very happy in it.'—' Ay, I'll be happy in't,' Nanny faltered, 'but, doctor, if I could just hae bidden on here though I wasna happy!'

- rhink of the food you will get ; broth nearly every day.'—' It — it'll be terrible enjoyable,' Nanny said.—' And there will be pleasant company for you always,' continued the doctor, and a nice room to sit in. Why, after you have been there a week, you won't be the same woman.'—' That's it!' cried Nanny with sudden passion. Na, na; I'll be a woman on the poor's rates. Oh, mither, mither, you little thocht when you bore me that I would

come to this !' You will often get out to see your friends,' was all Gavin could say.—' Na, na, na,' she cried, dinna say that ; I'll gang, but you manna bid me ever come out, except in a hearse. Diana let onybody in Thrums look on my face again.' The doctor glanced at the minister, and Gavin rose.—' Let us

pray,' he said, and the three went down on their knees Had he been of God's own image, unstained, he would have for- gotten all else in his Maker's presence, but Nanny was speaking too, and her words choked his. At first she only whispered, but soon what was eating her heart burst out painfully, and she did not know that the minister had stopped. They were such moans as these that brought him back to earth hae to gang .. I'm a base woman no' to be mair thankfu' to them that is so good to me. . . . . . I dinna like to prig wi' them to take a roundabout

road, and I'm sair fleid a' the Roods will see me If it could just be said to poor Sanders when he comes back that I

died hurriedly, syne he would be able to baud up his head Oh, mither I wish terrible they had come and ta'en me

at nicht It's a dog-cart, and I was praying it 'nicht be a cart, so that they could cover me wi' straw.'—' This is more than I can stand,' the doctor cried.—Nanny rose frightened. I've tried you, sair,' she said, but, oh, I'm grateful, and I'm ready now.' —They all advanced toward the door without another word, and Nanny even tried to smile. But in the middle of the floor some- thing came over her, and she stood there. Gavin took her hand, and it was cold. She looked from one to the other, her mouth opening and shutting.—' I canna help it,' she said.—' It's cruel hard,' muttered the doctor. 'I knew this woman when she was a lassie.'—The little minister stretched out his hands. Have pity on her, 0 God !' he prayed, with the presumptuousness of youth. —Nanny heard the words. Oh, Gad,' she cried, you mielit !' " Even Galt would have painted that up. Mr. Barrie leaves it, like Nanny's cottage, bare.