



Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Katherine Ward, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net





The Little Minister

_By_

J. M. BARRIE

Maude Adams Edition


  NEW YORK
  R. H. RUSSELL: Publisher
  1898

  Copyright 1891 and 1895
  By UNITED STATES BOOK CO.

  Copyright 1898
  By ROBERT HOWARD RUSSELL




CONTENTS

                                                                  PAGE
        I. The Love-Light.                                           1
       II. Runs Alongside the Making of a Minister.                  7
      III. The Night-Watchers.                                      17
       IV. First Coming of the Egyptian Woman.                      30
        V. A Warlike Chapter, Culminating in the Flouting of the
               Minister by the Woman.                               42
       VI. In Which the Soldiers Meet the Amazons of Thrums.        50
      VII. Has the Folly of Looking into a Woman's Eyes by way
               of Text.                                             62
     VIII. 3 A.M.--Monstrous Audacity of the Woman.                 69
       IX. The Woman Considered in Absence--Adventures of a
               Military Cloak.                                      79
        X. First Sermon Against Women.                              89
       XI. Tells in a Whisper of Man's Fall During the Curling
               Season.                                             100
      XII. Tragedy of a Mud House.                                 110
     XIII. Second Coming of the Egyptian Woman.                    117
      XIV. The Minister Dances to the Woman's Piping.              125
       XV. The Minister Bewitched--Second Sermon against Women.    135
      XVI. Continued Misbehaviour of the Egyptian Woman.           143
     XVII. Intrusion of Haggart into These Pages against the
               Author's Wish.                                      151
    XVIII. Caddam--Love Leading to a Rupture.                      161
      XIX. Circumstances Leading to the First Sermon in Approval
               of Women.                                           169
       XX. End of the State of Indecision.                         177
      XXI. Night--Margaret--Flashing of a Lantern.                 186
     XXII. Lovers.                                                 196
    XXIII. Contains a Birth, Which is Sufficient for One
               Chapter.                                            205
     XXIV. The New World, and the Woman Who May Not Dwell
               Therein.                                            211
      XXV. Beginning of the Twenty-Four Hours.                     217
     XXVI. Scene at the Spittal.                                   225
    XXVII. First Journey of the Dominie to Thrums During the
               Twenty-Four Hours.                                  232
   XXVIII. The Hill before Darkness Fell--Scene of the Impending
               Catastrophe.                                        237
     XXIX. Story of the Egyptian.                                  244
      XXX. The Meeting for Rain.                                   252
     XXXI. Various Bodies Converging on the Hill.                  259
    XXXII. Leading Swiftly to the Appalling Marriage.              268
   XXXIII. While the Ten O'Clock Bell Was Ringing.                 274
    XXXIV. The Great Rain.                                         281
     XXXV. The Glen at Break of Day.                               285
    XXXVI. Story of the Dominie.                                   299
   XXXVII. Second Journey of the Dominie to Thrums During the
               Twenty-Four Hours.                                  308
  XXXVIII. Thrums during the Twenty-Four Hours--Defence of the
               Manse.                                              315
    XXXIX. How Babbie Spent the Night of August Fourth.            324
       XL. Babbie and Margaret--Defence of the Manse Continued.    330
      XLI. Rintoul and Babbie--Breakdown of the Defence of the
               Manse.                                              337
     XLII. Margaret, the Precentor, and God Between.               345
    XLIII. Rain--Mist--The Jaws.                                   353
     XLIV. End of the Twenty-Four Hours.                           363
      XLV. Talk of a Little Maid Since Grown Tall.                 369


[Illustration: "I'LL GI'E YOU MY RABBIT," MICAH SAID, "IF YOU'LL GANG
AWA'."--PAGE 215.]




NOTE


The illustrations in this book have been made especially for this
edition of The Little Minister by arrangement with Mr. Charles
Frohman, through whose courtesy they are here reproduced. Many of them
were drawn by C. Allen Gilbert, while others are from photographs
which appear here for the first time.




Chapter One.

THE LOVE-LIGHT.


Long ago, in the days when our caged blackbirds never saw a king's
soldier without whistling impudently, "Come ower the water to
Charlie," a minister of Thrums was to be married, 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,