The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-11-17
CHAPTER VIII. The kirktoMn Ministers.

1 KirlStoWn was @ quiet place till you l knew it. Most days the Corn Water. | purling along the valley, made the only
 noise-except that Is, the tongues or 1 the gossips. It was a terrible place
 for gossip. It lived upon it, having l dearth of other aliment.
 Nothing was sacred from the tongues of the Kirktown neither great houses 1 nor small, neither high nor low sol
 dier nor sailor, tinker nor tailor. But for choice, the Kirlltown talked about
 ministers. These were, as usual, three and an Episcopalian-a smiling pa riah among the true blue Prespyte- | rians, who stayed himself with tumble | sales and comforted himself with the l comminatory clauses of the Athanasian | Creed.
 i The minister of the Scottish Estab- ! lishment was an high man, dry as high, ! and (for a while at leasO comes not 1 greatly into this story. He abode ] planted in his four square roomy house | under the immemorial parish elms, one 1 eye on the temporalties, in the shape 1 of manse glebe capable of being l feued out into "eligible building lots" | and the other fixed on the eternities,
 as suggested by the grave stones close
 under his study window.
 l The other two were the Reverend | John Fowler of the Free Kirk, and the | Reverend Benjamin Irongray of the | Kirk of the Martyrs. These were l friends and consorted much together.
 The elder, John Fowler, was mar
 ried man with a growing family. MT. 1 Irongray was still a bachelor. They
 abused each other frankly and theo- l logically, bandying such names as
 Brownist and Calvinist; but they loved 1 each other dearly.
 They met for oh oice in the manse of | the bach elor, a still and untroubled | place. far from the scuffle of the nur- l sery, and with no smell, eith CT of cook | ing or washing in the corridors and | staircases The Cameronian church of
 Kirlxtown was almost as solitary as
 the Episcopalian, but historically there l was a difference in the tradition. l The Reverend John Foster was tall, | dreamy-eyed enthusiast, crowned with | a fluff of silken blond hair, through 1 which he swept his fingers with quick l nervous movement. He spoke slowly,
 with an intonation sweet and a little l mournful quick ening now to unex- 1 pected enthusiasms and anon dropping unfinished into quaint and pensive si- | fences.
 This day the Free Kirk ministers s 1 daughter Janet, went steadily up the brae. Miss Fowler had basket in one | hand. in which something snuggled carefully covered with Il white nap | kin. If you had been able to touch that basket you would have found It | pleasantly warmI In fact, the basket l contained hook -soup in a little alumi- l num saucepan, together with good ra ton of cold beef, potatoes and veg | etables. "Merely a parsons daughter play ing Iady Bountiful cheaply," the un- instructed might have said-that IS, 1T thev had not belonged to Kirktown. Rut the village and the pits knew pet ter. It was a rough, reckless piace, with the tall chimneys and whiriihs ca eels held up barrenly against inc sky. and it's double shift or pit men night and day pouring up from the bowels of the earth, and dropping
 suIlenly down. But Kirktown Knew the value of it's ministers-and Of thelr daughters Not all these merits were patent, however. For it did not guess as the blinds were drawn aside to watch the progress of Minister TOW | ler's lass" that in order to carry tha' | supply to Widow MeTurk, Janet TOW Ter had had to go hungry herselt, to | skimp her hungry, growing, sroWhhs brothers. and even pare respectfully at the portion of her father as it went on | the plate for him to say grace oVer' Such, however, was the case
 Janet Fowler was not beautiiui' though she was young. She hau plain, kindly, pleasant face, In whicn | n pair of steady grey eyes shone Wili. | a consistent outlooking firmness on all | the world---on her father. who needeu | looking after quite as much as the l children-that is. her three brothers Raif. Ali, and Tim. These chiefly need ed bullying, while her smag sister sio-