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Macdonald cites four of the novels as expressions of Buchan’s anti-clericalism, claiming that he took ‘apart the faults and excesses of the Covenanters.’ As well as the fallacy of the argument, the problem here is that those of Buchan’s characters who might best be selected to support it were not clerics. In Sir Quixote it is the treacherous innkeeper, in Salute to Adventurers it is Muckle John Gib and in Witch Wood it is Chasehope.

From stories of more contemporary times, she also claims The Watcher by the Threshold, 610 coupled with The Rime of True Thomas as essays in anti-clericalism. ‘They make it clear that, when faced with the supernatural, ministers know nothing of any practical use and that even the Bible is no help in their narrow minds because they do not listen to its message, only the words.’611 _{Whatever this may mean, its basis seems wholly mistaken.}

These stories come from the dawn of the twentieth century. Belief in the upward ascent of man had not yet been shattered by the First World War. In The Watcher, Buchan is having fun, and probably at his own expense. The comic figure is the local parish minister who is progressive and liberal in his theology.612 However, far from being ‘an essay in anti- clericalism’, Buchan probably intended to amuse his father. Composed when Buchan was in London (1900) reading for the Bar at the Middle Temple, he tells us elsewhere that ‘the cosmology of the elder Calvinism [....] meant nothing to me’613 unlike his father as we have seen. The timing is significant, too, because Mr Buchan was already concerned, with others, over the critical views of one of their professors, George Adam Smith, and the attempt to proceed against him for heresy came to a head at the United Free Church General Assembly of 1902.

So here is The Watcher by the Threshold, which in Buchan’s own words is ‘a sort of gruesome comedy.’614 All three main characters represent ‘man come of age’ suddenly faced with a terrifying mystery from the ancient occult. Because of old ties, Henry Grey, the well-

610 _{‘A first go at Witch Wood’ exaggerates. DD, 62.} 611 _{CMF, 147.}

612 _{Similarly Lewis, Fern-seed, 86, note 2.} 613 _{MHD, 36.}

established London barrister, is brought to the Perthshire country house of Ladlaw, the victim of this demon possession. Faced with it, Grey found ‘old tragic stories from my Calvinist upbringing returned to haunt me.’ Late at night he sees over his bed a reproduction of Christ and the demoniac, and writes that ‘the man dwelt in by a devil was no new fancy.’ He ‘believed that science had docketed and analysed and explained the devil out of the world’615 but he became terrified of what was occurring and would fain escape.

Called away briefly to London on urgent legal business, Grey hit on the idea of importing the local minister for a couple of nights. This was as the only other ‘gentleman’ in the locality, and not with the remotest thought that he might be able to give any spiritual help. We are introduced to the Reverend Bruce Oliphant as one who ‘had been what they call a “brilliant student,”’616 but we are not meant to like him. With ‘a large calf-like face, mildly arrogant eyes, and chin which fell sharply away’ from ‘a drooping blond moustache’, he ‘smoked cheap cigarettes incessantly, and spat.’ Grey humours him as ‘a man of education and common sense’ but soon despairs of one ‘too ignorant and unimaginative’ and who does not even know that Justinian was a Christian. When Oliphant protests that ‘My profession compels me to discourage such nonsense’, the worldly-wise Grey responds wearily, ‘So does mine.’

Oliphant was asked to come and stay with the Ladlaws solely to keep them company in their trial. Indeed, the invitation was given to protect the lady, not to help the laird. There is comedy in his portrayal as a modern liberal young minister whose scientific rejection of the Devil and the supernatural is shattered during the story. After this experience, he is determined at the end to ‘write to Dr Rentoul,’617 the one who had taught him scepticism,’ for ‘I am a Christian man and I have been tempted. I thought we lived in a progressive age, but now I know that we d-d-don’t,’ he affirms through chattering teeth. Buchan will have known that his father would read the book, who may easily have seen a reflection of Professor Smith in both Oliphant and Rentoul.

There is comedy, too, in Oliphant’s encounters with Ladlaw in the library of the House of More after Grey has departed to London. Here the thoroughly secular Ladlaw quizzes Oliphant directly about belief in the Devil. When in response, the minister quotes Dr Rentoul on

615 _{Watcher, I/2/179(Nelson’16).}

616 _{All quotations following are taken from ibid., Chapter 2.}

617 _{Ibid, 223. This remark provides suitable finale and humorous twist to the story, expressing Oliphant’s} disillusionment with his once trusted mentor.

this ‘old, false, anthropomorphic fiction,’ his host rounds on him. ‘Who the deuce are you to change the belief of centuries?’ Again, Ladlaw affirms that our forefathers believed in the Devil and ‘saw him at evening about the folds and peat-stacks, or wrapped in a black gown standing in the pulpit of the Kirk’ and then asking, ‘Are we wiser men than they?’ Not yet bowed, Oliphant ‘answered that culture had undoubtedly advanced in our day’, but the laird replied with blasphemous words about modern culture.618 At this point Ladlaw (or the power within him) bursts out:

You are nothing but an ignorant parson [...] and you haven’t even the merits of your stupid profession. The old Scots ministers were Calvinists to the backbone, and they were strong men, strong men do you hear? - and they left their mark upon the nation. But you new tea-meeting kind of parson, who has nothing but a smattering of bad German to commend him, [much liberal theology having originated in Germany] is a nuisance to God and man. And they don’t believe in the Devil! Well he’ll get them safe enough some day.619

All of this will have delighted Mr Buchan and those many who shared his views, but it reduces Oliphant rather pathetically to imploring ‘him to remember my cloth and to curb his bad language.’ After that the minister, too, would fain escape but Ladlaw keeps him there.

There follows the nearest thing to a theological discussion in the whole story. Oliphant resolves to raise the question of demon possession ‘in the olden time, and quoted Pellinger’s theory on the Scriptural cases.’ When Ladlaw demurs, the minister responds, ‘I see that you hold the old interpretation [....] Nowadays, we tend to find the solution in natural causes.’ This only starts Ladlaw off again: ‘What do you mean by natural? You haven’t the most rudimentary knowledge of nature.’ This exchange is far from evidence that Oliphant had attempted to use the Bible ineffectually to drive out the demon. Far from seeking to do anything of the kind, this is no more than a failed attempt to discuss such cases in the Bible. Yet Lownie, too, rather surprisingly says this is a case of demon ‘possession which requires drastic treatment by the local minister.’620 There is no trace of this in Buchan’s story. Oliphant may be thought a failure in not attempting a Biblical exorcism, but Macdonald accounts him a failure in what he did not attempt.

618 _{Mr Buchan, had he lived, would doubtless have endorsed T. S. Eliot’s words: ‘What have we to do but stand} with empty hands and palms turned upwards in an age which advances steadily backwards?’ Chorus from The Rock (1934).

619 _{Watcher, 197.} 620 _{LJB, 84.}

There is a humorous twist when the tale ends with Grey and Oliphant searching for Ladlaw who is lost on the moor. As the minister approaches Ladlaw from behind, the demon moves across to him and the demented minister rushes away over the moor only to be finally restrained by the keepers who have also been engaged in the search. Thus unwittingly, and not through any spiritual counselling, the Christian minister is responsible for Ladlaw’s cure. In all of this Buchan had his tongue in his cheek; there is nothing here on which to build theories about his own view of the clergy.

In her accompanying article on The Watcher, Macdonald notes that publication (1902) was in Edinburgh/London (Blackwood), and in America. She fails to note that there it appeared in a much truncated form621 where everything about Oliphant is omitted, presumably because Americans would struggle to see the significance, unlike many of those who might then have bought the Blackwood version.