Home › The Little Minister › The Little Minister

The Little Minister

By JAMES M. BARRIE Condensation by MARGUERITE E. ALLEY GAVIN DISHART was barely twenty-one when he and his mother came to Thrums. All Thrums was out in its wyndes and closes--a few of the weavers still in knee-breeches, to look at the new Auld Licht minister. I was there, the dominie of Glen Quharity, four miles from Thrums, and heavy was my heart as I stood afar off so that Gavin's mother might not have the pain of seeing me. I alone of the crowd looked more at her than at her son. Eighteen years had passed since we parted, and already her hair had lost its brightness, and Margaret was an old woman at only forty-three, and I, who have loved her since I was a hobbledehoy and shall till I die, am the man who made her old.