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diff --git a/old/1217.txt b/old/1217.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aaab62f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1217.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7047 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Penelope's Experiences in Scotland, by +Kate Douglas Wiggin + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Penelope's Experiences in Scotland + +Author: Kate Douglas Wiggin + +Posting Date: August 26, 2008 [EBook #1217] +Release Date: February, 1998 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PENELOPE'S EXPERIENCES IN SCOTLAND *** + + + + +Produced by Les Bowler + + + + + +PENELOPE'S EXPERIENCES IN SCOTLAND + +Being extracts from the commonplace book of Penelope Hamilton + +By Kate Douglas Wiggin + +1913 Gay and Hancock edition + + + + To G.C.R. + + + +Contents. + + Part First--In Town. + + I. A Triangular Alliance. + II. Edina, Scotia's Darling Seat. + III. A Vision in Princes Street. + IV. Susanna Crum cudna say. + V. We emulate the Jackdaw. + VI. Edinburgh society, past and present. + VII. Francesca meets th' unconquer'd Scot. + VIII. 'What made th' Assembly shine?'. + IX. Omnia presbyteria est divisa in partes tres. + X. Mrs. M'Collop as a sermon-taster. + XI. Holyrood awakens. + XII. Farewell to Edinburgh. + XIII. The spell of Scotland. + + Part Second--In the Country. + + XIV. The wee theekit hoosie in the loaning. + XV. Jane Grieve and her grievances. + XVI. The path that led to Crummylowe. + XVII. Playing 'Sir Patrick Spens.' + XVIII. Paris comes to Pettybaw. + XIX. Fowk o' Fife. + XX. A Fifeshire tea-party. + XXI. International bickering. + XXII. Francesca entertains the green-eyed monster. + XXIII. Ballad revels at Rowardennan. + XXIV. Old songs and modern instances. + XXV. A treaty between nations. + XXVI. 'Scotland's burning! Look out!.' + XXVII. Three magpies and a marriage. + + + + +Chapter I. A Triangular Alliance. + + + 'Edina, Scotia's Darling seat! + All hail thy palaces and towers!' + + +Edinburgh, April 189-. + +22 Breadalbane Terrace. + +We have travelled together before, Salemina, Francesca, and I, and we +know the very worst there is to know about one another. After this point +has been reached, it is as if a triangular marriage had taken place, +and, with the honeymoon comfortably over, we slip along in thoroughly +friendly fashion. I use no warmer word than'friendly' because, in the +first place, the highest tides of feeling do not visit the coasts of +triangular alliances; and because, in the second place, 'friendly' is +a word capable of putting to the blush many a more passionate and +endearing one. + +Every one knows of our experiences in England, for we wrote volumes +of letters concerning them, the which were widely circulated among +our friends at the time, and read aloud under the evening lamps in the +several cities of our residence. + +Since then few striking changes have taken place in our history. + +Salemina returned to Boston for the winter, to find, to her amazement, +that for forty odd years she had been rather overestimating it. + +On arriving in New York, Francesca discovered that the young lawyer whom +for six months she had been advising to marry somebody more worthy than +herself was at last about to do it. This was somewhat in the nature of +a shock, for Francesca had been in the habit, ever since she was +seventeen, of giving her lovers similar advice, and up to this time no +one of them has ever taken it. She therefore has had the not unnatural +hope, I think, of organising at one time or another all these +disappointed and faithful swains into a celibate brotherhood; and +perhaps of driving by the interesting monastery with her husband and +calling his attention modestly to the fact that these poor monks were +filling their barren lives with deeds of piety, trying to remember their +Creator with such assiduity that they might, in time, forget Her. + +Her chagrin was all the keener at losing this last aspirant to her hand +in that she had almost persuaded herself that she was as fond of him as +she was likely to be of anybody, and that on the whole she had better +marry him and save his life and reason. + +Fortunately she had not communicated this gleam of hope by letter, +feeling, I suppose, that she would like to see for herself the light +of joy breaking over his pale cheek. The scene would have been rather +pretty and touching, but meantime the Worm had turned and despatched a +letter to the Majestic at the quarantine station, telling her that he +had found a less reluctant bride in the person of her intimate friend +Miss Rosa Van Brunt; and so Francesca's dream of duty and sacrifice was +over. + +Salemina says she was somewhat constrained for a week and a trifle +cynical for a fortnight, but that afterwards her spirits mounted on ever +ascending spirals to impossible heights, where they have since remained. +It appears from all this that although she was piqued at being taken at +her word, her heart was not in the least damaged. It never was one of +those fragile things which have to be wrapped in cotton, and preserved +from the slightest blow--Francesca's heart. It is made of excellent +stout, durable material, and I often tell her with the care she takes of +it, and the moderate strain to which it is subjected, it ought to be as +good as new a hundred years hence. + +As for me, the scene of my own love-story is laid in America and +England, and has nought to do with Edinburgh. It is far from finished; +indeed, I hope it will be the longest serial on record, one of those +charming tales that grow in interest as chapter after chapter unfolds, +until at the end we feel as if we could never part with the delightful +people. + +I should be, at this very moment, Mrs. William Beresford, a highly +respectable young matron who painted rather good pictures in her +spinster days, when she was Penelope Hamilton of the great American +working-class, Unlimited; but first Mrs. Beresford's dangerous illness +and then her death, have kept my dear boy a willing prisoner in Cannes, +his heart sadly torn betwixt his love and duty to his mother and his +desire to be with me. The separation is virtually over now, and we two, +alas! have ne'er a mother or a father between us, so we shall not wait +many months before beginning to comfort each other in good earnest. + +Meantime Salemina and Francesca have persuaded me to join their forces, +and Mr. Beresford will follow us to Scotland in a few short weeks, when +we shall have established ourselves in the country. + +We are overjoyed at being together again, we three women folk. As I said +before, we know the worst of one another, and the future has no terrors. +We have learned, for example, that-- + +Francesca does not like an early morning start. Salemina refuses to +arrive late anywhere. Penelope prefers to stay behind and follow next +day. + +Francesca scorns to travel third class. So does Salemina, but she will +if urged. + +Penelope hates a four-wheeler. Salemina is nervous in a hansom. +Francesca prefers a barouche or a landau. + +Salemina likes a steady fire in the grate. Penelope opens a window and +fans herself. + +Salemina inclines to instructive and profitable expeditions. Francesca +loves processions and sightseeing. Penelope abhors all of these equally. + +Salemina likes history. Francesca loves fiction. Penelope adores poetry +and detests facts. + +Penelope likes substantial breakfasts. Francesca dislikes the sight of +food in the morning. + +In the matter of breakfasts, when we have leisure to assert our +individual tastes, Salemina prefers tea, Francesca cocoa, and I, coffee. +We can never, therefore, be served with a large comfortable pot of +anything, but are confronted instead with a caravan of silver jugs, +china jugs, bowls of hard and soft sugar, hot milk, cold milk, hot +water, and cream, while each in her secret heart wishes that the other +two were less exigeante in the matter of diet and beverages. + +This does not sound promising, but it works perfectly well in practice +by the exercise of a little flexibility. + +As we left dear old Dovermarle Street and Smith's Private Hotel behind, +and drove to the station to take the Flying Scotsman, we indulged in +floods of reminiscence over the joys of travel we had tasted together +in the past, and talked with lively anticipation of the new experiences +awaiting us in the land of heather. + +While Salemina went to purchase the three first-class tickets, I +superintended the porters as they disposed our luggage in the van, and +in so doing my eye lighted upon a third-class carriage which was, for +a wonder, clean, comfortable, and vacant. Comparing it hastily with +the first-class compartment being held by Francesca, I found that it +differed only in having no carpet on the floor, and a smaller number +of buttons in the upholstering. This was really heartrending when the +difference in fare for three persons would be at least twenty dollars. +What a delightful sum to put aside for a rainy day!--that is, be it +understood, what a delightful sum to put aside and spend on the first +rainy day! for that is the way we always interpret the expression. + +When Salemina returned with the tickets, she found me, as usual, +bewailing our extravagance. + +Francesca descended suddenly from her post, and, wresting the tickets +from her duenna, exclaimed, "'I know that I can save the country, and I +know no other man can!' as William Pitt said to the Duke of Devonshire. +I have had enough of this argument. For six months of last year we +discussed travelling third class and continued to travel first. Get +into that clean hard-seated, ill-upholstered third-class carriage +immediately, both of you; save room enough for a mother with two babies, +and man carrying a basket of fish, and an old woman with five pieces of +hand-luggage and a dog; meanwhile I will exchange the tickets." + +So saying, she disappeared rapidly among the throng of passengers, +guards, porters, newspaper boys, golfers with bags of clubs, young +ladies with bicycles, and old ladies with tin hat-boxes. + +"What decision, what swiftness of judgment, what courage and energy!" +murmured Salemina. "Isn't she wonderfully improved since that unexpected +turning of the Worm?" + +Francesca rejoined us just as the guard was about to lock us in, and +flung herself down, quite breathless from her unusual exertion. + +"Well, we are travelling third for once, and the money is saved, or +at least it is ready to spend again at the first opportunity. The man +didn't wish to exchange the tickets at all. He says it is never done. I +told him they were bought by a very inexperienced American lady (that is +you, Salemina) who knew almost nothing of the distinctions between first +and third class, and naturally took the best, believing it to be none +too good for a citizen of the greatest republic on the face of the +earth. He said the tickets had been stamped on. I said so should I be +if I returned without exchanging them. He was a very dense person, and +didn't see my joke at all, but then, it is true, there were thirteen men +in line behind me, with the train starting in three minutes, and there +is nothing so debilitating to a naturally weak sense of humour as +selling tickets behind a grating, so I am not really vexed with him. +There! we are quite comfortable, pending the arrival of the babies, the +dog, and the fish, and certainly no vendor of periodic literature will +dare approach us while we keep these books in evidence." + +She had Laurence Hutton's Literary Landmarks and Royal Edinburgh, by +Mrs. Oliphant; I had Lord Cockburn's Memorials of his Time; and +somebody had given Salemina, at the moment of leaving London, a work on +'Scotias's darling seat,' in three huge volumes. When all this printed +matter was heaped on the top of Salemina's hold-all on the platform, the +guard had asked, "Do you belong to these books, ma'am?" + +"We may consider ourselves injured in going from London to Edinburgh in +a third-class carriage in eight or ten hours, but listen to this," said +Salemina, who had opened one of her large volumes at random when the +train started. + +"'The Edinburgh and London Stage-coach begins on Monday, 13th October +1712. All that desire... let them repair to the Coach and Horses at the +head of the Canongate every Saturday, or the Black Swan in Holborn every +other Monday, at both of which places they may be received in a coach +which performs the whole journey in thirteen days without any stoppage +(if God permits) having eighty able horses. Each passenger paying 4 +pounds, 10 shillings for the whole journey, allowing each 20 lbs. weight +and all above to pay 6 pence per lb. The coach sets off at six in the +morning' (you could never have caught it, Francesca!), 'and is performed +by Henry Harrison.' And here is a 'modern improvement,' forty-two years +later. In July 1754, the Edinburgh Courant advertises the stage-coach +drawn by six horses, with a postilion on one of the leaders, as a 'new, +genteel, two-end glass machine, hung on steel springs, exceedingly light +and easy, to go in ten days in summer and twelve in winter. Passengers +to pay as usual. Performed (if God permits) by your dutiful servant, +Hosea Eastgate. CARE IS TAKEN OF SMALL PARCELS ACCORDING TO THEIR +VALUE.'" + +"It would have been a long, wearisome journey," said I contemplatively; +"but, nevertheless, I wish we were making it in 1712 instead of a +century and three-quarters later." + +"What would have been happening, Salemina?" asked Francesca politely, +but with no real desire to know. + +"The Union had been already established five years," began Salemina +intelligently. + +"Which Union?" + +"Whose Union?" + +Salemina is used to these interruptions and eruptions of illiteracy on +our part. I think she rather enjoys them, as in the presence of such +complete ignorance as ours her lamp of knowledge burns all the brighter. + +"Anne was on the throne," she went on, with serene dignity. + +"What Anne?" + +"I know all about Anne!" exclaimed Francesca. "She came from the +Midnight Sun country, or up that way. She was very extravagant, and had +something to do with Jingling Geordie in The Fortunes of Nigel. It is +marvellous how one's history comes back to one!" + +"Quite marvellous," said Salemina dryly; "or at least the state in which +it comes back is marvellous. I am not a stickler for dates, as you +know, but if you could only contrive to fix a few periods in your minds, +girls, just in a general way, you would not be so shamefully befogged. +Your Anne of Denmark, Francesca, was the wife of James VI. of Scotland, +who was James I. of England, and she died a hundred years before the +Anne I mean,--the last of the Stuarts, you know. My Anne came after +William and Mary, and before the Georges." + +"Which William and Mary?" + +"What Georges?" + +But this was too much even for Salemina's equanimity, and she retired +behind her book in dignified displeasure, while Francesca and I meekly +looked up the Annes in a genealogical table, and tried to decide whether +'b.1665' meant born or beheaded. + + + +Chapter II. Edina, Scotia's Darling Seat. + + + +The weather that greeted us on our unheralded arrival in Scotland was of +the precise sort offered by Edinburgh to her unfortunate queen, when, + + 'After a youth by woes o'ercast, + After a thousand sorrows past, + The lovely Mary once again + Set foot upon her native plain.' + +John Knox records of those memorable days: 'The very face of heaven did +manifestlie speak what comfort was brought to this country with hir--to +wit, sorrow, dolour, darkness and all impiety--for in the memorie of man +never was seen a more dolorous face of the heavens than was seen at +her arryvall... the myst was so thick that skairse micht onie man espy +another; and the sun was not seyn to shyne two days befoir nor two days +after.' + +We could not see Edina's famous palaces and towers because of the haar, +that damp, chilling, drizzling, dripping fog or mist which the east wind +summons from the sea; but we knew that they were there, shrouded in the +heart of that opaque, mysterious greyness, and that before many hours +our eyes would feast upon their beauty. + +Perhaps it was the weather, but I could think of nothing but poor Queen +Mary! She had drifted into my imagination with the haar, so that I could +fancy her homesick gaze across the water as she murmured, 'Adieu, ma +chere France! Je ne vous verray jamais plus!'--could fancy her saying as +in Allan Cunningham's verse:-- + + 'The sun rises bright in France, + And fair sets he; + But he hath tint the blithe blink he had + In my ain countree.' + +And then I recalled Mary's first good-night in Edinburgh: that 'serenade +of 500 rascals with vile fiddles and rebecks'; that singing, 'in bad +accord,' of Protestant psalms by the wet crowd beneath the palace +windows, while the fires on Arthur's Seat shot flickering gleams of +welcome through the dreary fog. What a lullaby for poor Mary, half +Frenchwoman and all Papist! + +It is but just to remember the 'indefatigable and undissuadable' John +Knox's statement, 'the melody lyked her weill, and she willed the same +to be continewed some nightis after.' For my part, however, I distrust +John Knox's musical feeling, and incline sympathetically to the Sieur +de Brantome's account, with its 'vile fiddles' and 'discordant psalms,' +although his judgment was doubtless a good deal depressed by what he +called the si grand brouillard that so dampened the spirits of Mary's +French retinue. + +Ah well, I was obliged to remember, in order to be reasonably happy +myself, that Mary had a gay heart, after all; that she was but nineteen; +that, though already a widow, she did not mourn her young husband as one +who could not be comforted; and that she must soon have been furnished +with merrier music than the psalms, for another of the sour comments +of the time is, 'Our Queen weareth the dule [weeds], but she can dance +daily, dule and all!' + +These were my thoughts as we drove through invisible streets in the +Edinburgh haar, turned into what proved next day to be a Crescent, and +drew up to an invisible house with a visible number 22 gleaming over +a door which gaslight transformed into a probability. We alighted, and +though we could scarcely see the driver's outstretched hand, he was +quite able to discern a half-crown, and demanded three shillings. + +The noise of our cab had brought Mrs. M'Collop to the door,--good (or +at least pretty good) Mrs. M'Collop, to whose apartments we had been +commended by English friends who had never occupied them. + +Dreary as it was without, all was comfortable within-doors, and a cheery +(one-and-sixpenny) fire crackled in the grate. Our private drawing-room +was charmingly furnished, and so large that, notwithstanding the +presence of a piano, two sofas, five small tables, cabinets, desks, and +chairs,--not forgetting a dainty five-o'clock tea equipage,--we might +have given a party in the remaining space. + +"If this is a typical Scotch lodging, I like it; and if it is Scotch +hospitality to lay the cloth and make the fire before it is asked for, +then I call it simply Arabian in character!" and Salemina drew off her +damp gloves, and extended her hands to the blaze. + +"And isn't it delightful that the bill doesn't come in for a whole +week?" asked Francesca. "We have only our English experiences on which +to found our knowledge, and all is delicious mystery. The tea may be a +present from Mrs. M'Collop, and the sugar may not be an extra; the fire +may be included in the rent of the apartment, and the piano may not +be taken away to-morrow to enhance the attractions of the dining-room +floor." (It was Francesca, you remember, who had 'warstled' with the +itemised accounts at Smith's Private Hotel in London, and she who was +always obliged to turn pounds, shillings, and pence into dollars and +cents before she could add or subtract.) + +"Come and look at the flowers in my bedroom," I called, "four great +boxes full! Mr. Beresford must have ordered the carnations, because he +always does; but where did the roses come from, I wonder?" + +I rang the bell, and a neat white-aproned maid appeared. + +"Who brought these flowers, please?" + +"I cudna say, mam." + +"Thank you; will you be good enough to ask Mrs. M'Collop?" + +In a moment she returned with the message, "There will be a letter in +the box, mam." + +"It seems to me the letter should be in the box now, if it is ever to +be," I thought, and I presently drew this card from among the fragrant +buds:-- + +'Lady Baird sends these Scotch roses as a small return for the pleasure +she has received from Miss Hamilton's pictures. Lady Baird will give +herself the pleasure of calling to-morrow; meantime she hopes that Miss +Hamilton and her party will dine with her some evening this week.' + +"How nice!" exclaimed Salemina. + +"The celebrated Miss Hamilton's undistinguished party presents its +humble compliments to Lady Baird," chanted Francesca, "and having no +engagements whatever, and small hope of any, will dine with her on any +and every evening she may name. Miss Hamilton's party will wear its best +clothes, polish its mental jewels, and endeavour in every possible way +not to injure the gifted Miss Hamilton's reputation among the Scottish +nobility." + +I wrote a hasty note of thanks to Lady Baird, and rang the bell. + +"Can I send a message, please?" I asked the maid. + +"I cudna say, mam." + +"Will you be good enough to ask Mrs. M'Collop, please?" + +Interval; then:-- + +"The Boots will tak' it at seeven o'clock, mam." + +"Thank you; is Fotheringay Crescent near here?" + +"I cudna say, mam." + +"Thank you; what is your name, please?" + +I waited in well-grounded anxiety, for I had no idea that she knew her +name, or that if she had ever heard it, she could say it; but, to my +surprise, she answered almost immediately, "Susanna Crum, mam!" + +What a joy it is in a vexatious world, where things 'gang aft agley,' to +find something absolutely right. + +If I had devoted years to the subject, having the body of Susanna Crum +before my eyes every minute of the time for inspiration, Susanna Crum +is what I should have named that maid. Not a vowel could be added, not a +consonant omitted. I said so when first I saw her, and weeks of intimate +acquaintance only deepened my reverence for the parental genius that had +so described her to the world. + + + +Chapter III. A vision in Princes Street. + + + +When we awoke next morning the sun had forgotten itself and was shining +in at Mrs. M'Collop's back windows. + +We should have arisen at once to burn sacrifices and offer oblations, +but we had seen the sun frequently in America, and had no idea (poor +fools!) that it was anything to be grateful for, so we accepted it, +almost without comment, as one of the perennial providences of life. + +When I speak of Edinburgh sunshine I do not mean, of course, any such +burning, whole-souled, ardent warmth of beam as one finds in countries +where they make a specialty of climate. It is, generally speaking, a +half-hearted, uncertain ray, as pale and transitory as a martyr's smile; +but its faintest gleam, or its most puerile attempt to gleam, is admired +and recorded by its well-disciplined constituency. Not only that, but at +the first timid blink of the sun the true Scotsman remarks smilingly, +'I think now we shall be having settled weather!' It is a pathetic +optimism, beautiful but quite groundless, and leads one to believe in +the story that when Father Noah refused to take Sandy into the ark, he +sat down philosophically outside, saying, with a glance at the clouds, +'Aweel! the day's just aboot the ord'nar', an' I wouldna won'er if we +saw the sun afore nicht!' + +But what loyal son of Edina cares for these transatlantic gibes, and +where is the dweller within her royal gates who fails to succumb to the +sombre beauty of that old grey town of the North? 'Grey! why, it is grey +or grey and gold, or grey and gold and blue, or grey and gold and blue +and green, or grey and gold and blue and green and purple, according as +the heaven pleases and you choose your ground! But take it when it is +most sombrely grey, where is another such grey city?' + +So says one of her lovers, and so the great army of lovers would say, +had they the same gift of language; for + + 'Even thus, methinks, a city reared should be,... + Yea, an imperial city that might hold + Five time a hundred noble towns in fee.... + Thus should her towers be raised; with vicinage + Of clear bold hills, that curve her very streets, + As if to indicate, 'mid choicest seats + Of Art, abiding Nature's majesty.' + +We ate a hasty breakfast that first morning, and prepared to go out for +a walk into the great unknown, perhaps the most pleasurable sensation +in the world. Francesca was ready first, and, having mentioned the fact +several times ostentatiously, she went into the drawing-room to wait +and read the Scotsman. When we went thither a few minutes later we found +that she had disappeared. + +"She is below, of course," said Salemina. "She fancies that we shall +feel more ashamed at our tardiness if we find her sitting on the hall +bench in silent martyrdom." + +There was no one in the hall, however, save Susanna, who inquired if we +would see the cook before going out. + +"We have no time now, Susanna," I remarked. "We are anxious to have a +walk before the weather changes, if possible, but we shall be out for +luncheon and in for dinner, and Mrs. M'Collop may give us anything she +pleases. Do you know where Miss Francesca is?" + +"I cudna s---" + +"Certainly, of course you couldn't; but I wonder if Mrs. M'Collop saw +her?" + +Mrs. M'Collop appeared from the basement, and vouchsafed the information +that she had seen 'the young leddy rinnin' after the regiment.' + +"Running after the regiment!" repeated Salemina automatically. "What +a reversal of the laws of nature? Why, in Berlin, it was always the +regiment that used to run after her!" + +We learned in what direction the soldiers had gone, and pursuing the +same path found the young lady on the corner of a street near by. She +was quite unabashed. "You don't know what you have missed!" she said +excitedly. "Let us get into this tram, and possibly we can head them off +somewhere. They may be going into battle, and if so, my heart's blood is +at their service. It is one of those experiences that come only once +in a lifetime. There were pipes and there were kilts! (I didn't suppose +they ever really wore them outside of the theatre!) When you have +seen the kilts swinging, Salemina, you will never be the same woman +afterwards! You never expected to see the Olympian gods walking, did +you? Perhaps you thought they always sat on practicable rocks and made +stiff gestures, from the elbow, as they do in the Wagner operas? Well, +these gods walked, if you can call the inspired gait a walk! If there +is a single spinster left in Scotland, it is because none of these ever +asked her to marry him. Ah, how grateful I ought to be that I am free +to say 'yes', if a kilt ever asks me to be his! Poor Penelope, yoked to +your commonplace trousered Beresford! (I wish the tram would go faster!) +You must capture one of them, by fair means or foul, Penelope, and +Salemina and I will hold him down while you paint him,--there they are, +they are there somewhere, don't you hear them?" + +There they were indeed, filing down the grassy slopes of the Gardens, +swinging across one of the stone bridges, and winding up the Castlehill +to the Esplanade like a long glittering snake; the streamers of their +Highland bonnets waving, their arms glistening in the sun, and the +bagpipes playing 'The March of the Cameron Men.' The pipers themselves +were mercifully hidden from us on that first occasion, and it was well, +for we could never have borne another feather's weight of ecstasy. + +It was in Princes Street that we had alighted,--named thus for the +prince who afterwards became George IV.--and I hope he was, and is, +properly grateful. It ought never to be called a street, this most +magnificent of terraces, and the world has cause to bless that interdict +of the Court of Session in 1774 which prevented the Gradgrinds of the +day from erecting buildings along its south side,--a sordid scheme that +would have been the very superfluity of naughtiness. + +It was an envious Glasgow body who said grudgingly, as he came out of +Waverley Station, and gazed along its splendid length for the +first time, "Weel, wi' a' their haverin', it's but half a street +onyway!"--which always reminded me of the Western farmer who came from +his native plains to the beautiful Berkshire hills. "I've always heard +o' this scenery," he said. "Blamed if I can find any scenery; but if +there was, nobody could see it, there's so much high ground in the way!" + +To think that not so much more than a hundred years ago Princes Street +was nought but a straight country road, the 'Lang Dykes' and the 'Lang +Gait,' as it was called. + +We looked down over the grassy chasm that separates the New from the +Old Town; looked our first on Arthur's Seat, that crouching lion of a +mountain; saw the Corstorphine Hill, and Calton heights, and Salisbury +Crags, and finally that stupendous bluff of rock that culminates so +majestically in Edinburgh Castle. There is something else which, like +Susanna Crum's name, is absolutely and ideally right! Stevenson calls it +one of the most satisfactory crags in nature--a Bass rock upon dry +land, rooted in a garden, shaken by passing trains, carrying a crown +of battlements and turrets, and describing its warlike shadow over the +liveliest and brightest thoroughfare of the new town. It dominates +the whole countryside from water and land. The men who would have the +courage to build such a castle in such a spot are all dead; all dead, +and the world is infinitely more comfortable without them. They are all +gone, and no more like unto them will ever be born, and we can most +of us count upon dying safely in our beds, of diseases bred of modern +civilisation. But I am glad that those old barbarians, those rudimentary +creatures working their way up into the divine likeness, when they +were not hanging, drawing, quartering, torturing, and chopping their +neighbours, and using their heads in conventional patterns on the tops +of gate-posts, did devote their leisure intervals to rearing fortresses +like this. Edinburgh Castle could not be conceived, much less built, +nowadays, when all our energy is consumed in bettering the condition +of the 'submerged tenth'! What did they care about the 'masses,' that +'regal race that is now no more,' when they were hewing those blocks +of rugged rock and piling them against the sky-line on the top of that +great stone mountain! It amuses me to think how much more picturesque +they left the world, and how much better we shall leave it; though if +an artist were requested to distribute individual awards to different +generations, you could never persuade him to give first prizes to the +centuries that produced steam laundries, trolleys, X rays, and sanitary +plumbing. + +What did they reck of Peace Congresses and bloodless arbitrations when +they lighted the beacon-fires, flaming out to the gudeman and his sons +ploughing or sowing in the Lang Dykes the news that their 'ancient +enemies of England had crossed the Tweed'! + +I am the most peaceful person in the world, but the Castle was too much +for my imagination. I was mounted and off and away from the first moment +I gazed upon its embattled towers, heard the pipers in the distance, and +saw the Black Watch swinging up the green steps where the huge fortress +'holds its state.' The modern world had vanished, and my +steed was galloping, galloping, galloping back into the +place-of-the-things-that-are-past, traversing centuries at every leap. + +'To arms! Let every banner in Scotland float defiance to the breeze!' +(So I heard my new-born imaginary spirit say to my real one.) 'Yes, +and let the Deacon Convener unfurl the sacred Blue Blanket, under which +every liege burgher of the kingdom is bound to answer summons! The +bale-fires are gleaming, giving alarm to Hume, Haddington, Dunbar, +Dalkeith, and Eggerhope. Rise, Stirling, Fife, and the North! All +Scotland will be under arms in two hours. One bale-fire: the English +are in motion! Two: they are advancing! Four in a row: they are of great +strength! All men in arms west of Edinburgh muster there! All eastward, +at Haddington! And every Englishman caught in Scotland is lawfully the +prisoner of whoever takes him!' (What am I saying? I love Englishmen, +but the spell is upon me!) 'Come on, Macduff!' (The only suitable and +familiar challenge my warlike tenant can summon at the moment.) 'I am +the son of a Gael! My dagger is in my belt, and with the guid broadsword +at my side I can with one blow cut a man in twain! My bow is cut +from the wood of the yews of Glenure; the shaft is from the wood of +Lochetive, the feathers from the great golden eagles of Locktreigside! +My arrowhead was made by the smiths of the race of Macphedran! Come on, +Macduff!' + +And now a shopkeeper has filled his window with royal Stuart tartans, +and I am instantly a Jacobite. + + 'The Highland clans wi' sword in hand, + Frae John o' Groat's to Airly, + Hae to a man declar'd to stand + Or fa' wi' Royal Charlie. + + 'Come through the heather, around him gather, + Come Ronald, come Donald, come a'thegither, + And crown your rightfu' lawfu' king, + For wha'll be king but Charlie?' + +It is the eve of the battle of Prestonpans. Is it not under the Rock +of Dunsappie on yonder Arthur's Seat that our Highland army will encamp +to-night? At dusk the prince will hold a council of his chiefs and +nobles (I am a chief and a noble), and at daybreak we shall march +through the old hedgerows and woods of Duddingston, pipes playing and +colours flying, bonnie Charlie at the head, his claymore drawn and the +scabbard flung away! (I mean awa'!)-- + + 'Then here's a health to Charlie's cause, + And be't complete an' early; + His very name my heart's blood warms + To arms for Royal Charlie! + + 'Come through the heather, around him gather, + Come Ronald, come Donald, come a'thegither, + And crown your rightfu', lawfu' king, + For wha'll be king but Charlie?' + +I hope that those in authority will never attempt to convene a Peace +Congress in Edinburgh, lest the influence of the Castle be too strong +for the delegates. They could not resist it nor turn their backs upon +it, since, unlike other ancient fortresses, it is but a stone's-throw +from the front windows of all the hotels. They might mean never so well, +but they would end by buying dirk hat-pins and claymore brooches for +their wives, their daughters would all run after the kilted regiment and +marry as many of the pipers as asked them, and before night they would +all be shouting with the noble FitzEustace-- + + 'Where's the coward who would not dare + To fight for such a land?' + +While I was rhapsodising, Salemina and Francesca were shopping in the +Arcade, buying some of the cairngorms, and Tam O'Shanter purses, and +models of Burns's cottage, and copies of Marmion in plaided covers, and +thistle belt-buckles, and bluebell penwipers, with which we afterwards +inundated our native land. When my warlike mood had passed, I sat down +upon the steps of the Scott monument and watched the passers-by in +a sort of waking dream. I suppose they were the usual professors and +doctors and ministers who are wont to walk up and down the Edinburgh +streets, with a sprinkling of lairds and leddies of high degree and a +few Americans looking at the shop windows to choose their clan tartans; +but for me they did not exist. In their places stalked the ghosts of +kings and queens and knights and nobles; Columba, Abbot of Iona; Queen +Margaret and Malcolm--she the sweetest saint in all the throng; King +David riding towards Drumsheugh forest on Holy Rood day, with his horns +and hounds and huntsmen following close behind; Anne of Denmark and +Jingling Geordie; Mary Stuart in all her girlish beauty, with the four +Maries in her train; and lurking behind, Bothwell, 'that ower sune +stepfaither,' and the murdered Rizzio and Darnley; John Knox, in his +black Geneva cloak; Bonnie Prince Charlie and Flora Macdonald; lovely +Annabella Drummond; Robert the Bruce; George Heriot with a banner +bearing on it the words 'I distribute chearfully'; James I. carrying +The King's Quair; Oliver Cromwell; and a long line of heroes, martyrs, +humble saints, and princely knaves. + +Behind them, regardless of precedence, came the Ploughman Poet and +the Ettrick Shepherd, Boswell and Dr. Johnson, Dr. John Brown and Thomas +Carlyle, Lady Nairne and Drummond of Hawthornden, Allan Ramsay and Sir +Walter; and is it not a proof of the Wizard's magic art, that side by +side with the wraiths of these real people walked, or seemed to walk, +the Fair Maid of Perth, Jeanie Deans, Meg Merrilies, Guy Mannering, +Ellen, Marmion, and a host of others so sweetly familiar and so humanly +dear that the very street-laddies could have named and greeted them as +they passed by? + + + +Chapter IV. Susanna Crum cudna say. + + + +Life at Mrs. M'Collop's apartments in 22 Breadalbane Terrace is about as +simple, comfortable, dignified, and delightful as it well can be. + +Mrs. M'Collop herself is neat, thrifty, precise, tolerably genial, and +'verra releegious.' + +Her partner, who is also the cook, is a person introduced to us as Miss +Diggity. We afterwards learned that this is spelled Dalgety, but it is +not considered good form, in Scotland, to pronounce the names of persons +and places as they are written. When, therefore, I allude to the cook, +which will be as seldom as possible, I shall speak of her as Miss +Diggity-Dalgety, so that I shall be presenting her correctly both to the +eye and to the ear, and giving her at the same time a hyphenated name, a +thing which is a secret object of aspiration in Great Britain. + +In selecting our own letters and parcels from the common stock on the +hall table, I perceive that most of our fellow-lodgers are hyphenated +ladies, whose visiting-cards diffuse the intelligence that in their +single persons two ancient families and fortunes are united. On +the ground floor are the Misses Hepburn-Sciennes (pronounced +Hebburn-Sheens); on the floor above us are Miss Colquhoun (Cohoon) +and her cousin Miss Cockburn-Sinclair (Coburn-Sinkler). As soon as +the Hepburn-Sciennes depart, Mrs. M'Collop expects Mrs. Menzies of +Kilconquhar, of whom we shall speak as Mrs. Mingess of Kinyuchar. +There is not a man in the house; even the Boots is a girl, so that +22 Breadalbane Terrace is as truly a castra puellarum as was ever the +Castle of Edinburgh with its maiden princesses in the olden time. + +We talked with Miss Diggity-Dalgety on the evening of our first day at +Mrs. M'Collop's, when she came up to know our commands. As Francesca +and Salemina were both in the room, I determined to be as Scotch as +possible, for it is Salemina's proud boast that she is taken for a +native of every country she visits. + +"We shall not be entertaining at present, Miss Diggity," I said, "so you +can give us just the ordinary dishes,--no doubt you are accustomed to +them: scones, baps or bannocks with marmalade, finnan-haddie or kippered +herring for breakfast; tea,--of course we never touch coffee in the +morning" (here Francesca started with surprise); "porridge, and we like +them well boiled, please" (I hope she noted the plural pronoun; Salemina +did, and blanched with envy); "minced collops for luncheon, or a nice +little black-faced chop; Scotch broth, pease brose or cockyleekie soup +at dinner, and haggis now and then, with a cold shape for dessert. That +is about the sort of thing we are accustomed to,--just plain Scotch +living." + +I was impressing Miss Diggity-Dalgety,--I could see that clearly; but +Francesca spoiled the effect by inquiring, maliciously, if we could +sometimes have a howtowdy wi' drappit eggs, or her favourite dish, wee +grumphie wi' neeps. + +Here Salemina was obliged to poke the fire in order to conceal her +smiles, and the cook probably suspected that Francesca found howtowdy +in the Scotch glossary; but we amused each other vastly, and that is our +principal object in life. + +Miss Diggity-Dalgety's forebears must have been exposed to foreign +influences, for she interlards her culinary conversation with French +terms, and we have discovered that this is quite common. A 'jigget' of +mutton is of course a gigot, and we have identified an 'ashet' as +an assiette. The 'petticoat tails' she requested me to buy at the +confectioner's were somewhat more puzzling, but when they were finally +purchased by Susanna Crum they appeared to be ordinary little cakes; +perhaps, therefore, petits gastels, since gastel is an old form of +gateau, as was bel for beau. Susanna, on her part, speaks of the +wardrobe in my bedroom as an 'awmry.' It certainly contains no weapons, +so cannot be an armoury, and we conjecture that her word must be a +corruption of armoire. + +"That was a remarkable touch about the black-faced chop," laughed +Salemina, when Miss Diggity-Dalgety had retired; "not that I believe +they ever say it." + +"I am sure they must," I asserted stoutly, "for I passed a flesher's on +my way home, and saw a sign with 'Prime Black-Faced Mutton' printed on +it. I also saw 'Fed Veal,' but I forgot to ask the cook for it." + +"We ought really to have kept house in Edinburgh," observed Francesca, +looking up from the Scotsman. "One can get a 'self-contained residential +flat' for twenty pounds a month. We are such an enthusiastic trio that a +self-contained flat would be everything to us; and if it were not fully +furnished, here is a firm that wishes to sell a 'composite bed' for six +pounds, and a 'gent's stuffed easy' for five. Added to these inducements +there is somebody who advertises that parties who intend 'displenishing' +at the Whit Term would do well to consult him, as he makes a specialty +of second-handed furniture and 'cyclealities.' What are 'cyclealities,' +Susanna?" (She had just come in with coals.) + +"I cudna say, mam." + +"Thank you; no, you need not ask Mrs. M'Collop; it is of no +consequence." + +Susanna Crum is a most estimable young woman, clean, respectful, +willing, capable, and methodical, but as a Bureau of Information she is +painfully inadequate. Barring this single limitation she seems to be a +treasure-house of all good practical qualities; and being thus clad and +panoplied in virtue, why should she be so timid and self-distrustful? + +She wears an expression which can mean only one of two things: either +she has heard of the national tomahawk and is afraid of violence on +our part, or else her mother was frightened before she was born. This +applies in general to her walk and voice and manner, but is it fear that +prompts her eternal 'I cudna say,' or is it perchance Scotch caution +and prudence? Is she afraid of projecting her personality too indecently +far? Is it the indirect effect of heresy trials on her imagination? Does +she remember the thumbscrew of former generations? At all events, she +will neither affirm nor deny, and I am putting her to all sorts of +tests, hoping to discover finally whether she is an accident, an +exaggeration, or a type. + +Salemina thinks that our American accent may confuse her. Of course she +means Francesca's and mine, for she has none; although we have +tempered ours so much for the sake of the natives, that we can scarcely +understand each other any more. As for Susanna's own accent, she comes +from the heart of Aberdeenshire, and her intonation is beyond my power +to reproduce. + +We naturally wish to identify all the national dishes; so, "Is this +cockle soup, Susanna?" I ask her, as she passes me the plate at dinner. + +"I cudna say." + +"This vegetable is new to me, Susanna; is it perhaps sea-kale?" + +"I canna say, mam." + +Then finally, in despair, as she handed me a boiled potato one day, +I fixed my searching Yankee brown eyes on her blue-Presbyterian, +non-committal ones, and asked, "What is this vegetable, Susanna?" + +In an instant she withdrew herself, her soul, her ego, so utterly that +I felt myself gazing at an inscrutable stone image, as she replied, "I +cudna say, mam." + +This was too much! Her mother may have been frightened, very badly +frightened, but this was more that I could endure without protest. The +plain boiled potato is practically universal. It is not only common to +all temperate climates, but it has permeated all classes of society. +I am confident that the plain boiled potato has been one of the chief +constituents in the building up of that frame in which Susanna Crum +conceals her opinions and emotions. I remarked, therefore, as an, +apparent afterthought, "Why, it is a potato, is it not, Susanna?" + +What do you think she replied, when thus hunted into a corner, pushed +against a wall, driven to the very confines of her personal and national +liberty? She subjected the potato to a second careful scrutiny, and +answered, "I wudna say it's no'!" + +Now there is no inherited physical terror in this. It is the +concentrated essence of intelligent reserve, caution, and obstinacy; +it is a conscious intellectual hedging; it is a dogged and determined +attempt to build up barriers of defence between the questioner and the +questionee: it must be, therefore, the offspring of the catechism and +the heresy trial. + +Once again, after establishing an equally obvious fact, I succeeded in +wringing from her the reluctant admission, "It depends," but she was so +shattered by the bulk and force of this outgo, so fearful that in some +way she had imperilled her life or reputation, so anxious concerning the +effect that her unwilling testimony might have upon unborn generations, +that she was of no real service the rest of the day. + +I wish that the Lord Advocate, or some modern counterpart of Braxfield, +the hanging judge, would summon Susanna Crum as a witness in an +important case. He would need his longest plummet to sound the depths of +her consciousness. + +I have had no legal experience, but I can imagine the scene. + +"Is the prisoner your father, Susanna Crum?" + +"I cudna say, my lord." + +"You have not understood the question, Susanna. Is the prisoner your +father?" + +"I cudna say, my lord." + +"Come, come, my girl! you must answer the questions put you by the +court. You have been an inmate of the prisoner's household since your +earliest consciousness. He provided you with food, lodging, and clothing +during your infancy and early youth. You have seen him on annual +visits to your home, and watched him as he performed the usual parental +functions for your younger brothers and sisters. I therefore repeat, is +the prisoner your father, Susanna Crum?" + +"I wudna say he's no', my lord." + +"This is really beyond credence! What do you conceive to be the idea +involved in the word 'father,' Susanna Crum?" + +"It depends, my lord." + +And this, a few hundred years earlier, would have been the natural and +effective moment for the thumbscrews. + +I do not wish to be understood as defending these uncomfortable +appliances. They would never have been needed to elicit information from +me, for I should have spent my nights inventing matter to confess in +the daytime. I feel sure that I should have poured out such floods +of confessions and retractations that if all Scotland had been one +listening ear it could not have heard my tale. I am only wondering if, +in the extracting of testimony from the common mind, the thumbscrew +might not have been more necessary with some nations than with others. + + + +Chapter V. We emulate the Jackdaw. + + + +Invitations had been pouring in upon us since the delivery of our +letters of introduction, and it was now the evening of our debut in +Edinburgh society. Francesca had volunteered to perform the task of +leaving cards, ordering a private victoria for the purpose, and arraying +herself in purple and fine linen. + +"Much depends upon the first impression," she had said. "Miss Hamilton's +'party' may not be gifted, but it is well-dressed. My hope is that +some of our future hostesses will be looking from the second-story +front-windows. If they are, I can assure them in advance that I shall be +a national advertisement." + +It is needless to remark that as it began to rain heavily as she was +leaving the house, she was obliged to send back the open carriage, +and order, to save time, one of the public cabs from the stand in the +Terrace. + +"Would you mind having the lamiter, being first in line?" asked Susanna +of Salemina, who had transmitted the command. + +When Salemina fails to understand anything, the world is kept in +complete ignorance.--Least of all would she stoop to ask a humble +maidservant to translate the vernacular of the country; so she replied +affably, "Certainly, Susanna, that is the kind we always prefer. I +suppose it is covered?" + +Francesca did not notice, until her coachman alighted to deliver the +first letter and cards, that he had one club foot and one wooden leg; +it was then that the full significance of 'lamiter' came to her. He was +covered, however, as Salemina had supposed, and the occurrence gave us +a precious opportunity of chaffing that dungeon of learning. He was +tolerably alert and vigorous, too, although he certainly did not impart +elegance to a vehicle, and he knew every street in the court end of +Edinburgh, and every close and wynd in the Old Town. On this our first +meeting with him, he faltered only when Francesca asked him last of all +to drive to 'Kildonan House, Helmsdale'; supposing, not unnaturally, +that it was as well known an address as Morningside House, Tipperlinn, +whence she had just come. The lamiter had never heard of Kildonan House +nor of Helmsdale, and he had driven in the streets of Auld Reekie for +thirty years. None of the drivers whom he consulted could supply any +information; Susanna Crum cudna say that she had ever heard of it, nor +could Mrs. M'Collop, nor could Miss Diggity-Dalgety. It was reserved for +Lady Baird to explain that Helmsdale was two hundred and eighty miles +north, and that Kildonan House was ten miles from the Helmsdale railway +station, so that the poor lamiter would have had a weary drive even had +he known the way. The friends who had given us letters to Mr. and Mrs. +Jameson-Inglis (Jimmyson-Ingals) must have expected us either to visit +John o' Groats on the northern border, and drop in on Kildonan House +en route, or to send our note of introduction by post and await an +invitation to pass the summer. At all events, the anecdote proved very +pleasing to our Edinburgh acquaintances. I hardly know whether, if they +should visit America, they would enjoy tales of their own stupidity +as hugely as they did the tales of ours, but they really were very +appreciative in this particular, and it is but justice to ourselves to +say that we gave them every opportunity for enjoyment. + +But I must go back to our first grand dinner in Scotland. We were +dressed at quarter-past seven, when, in looking at the invitation again, +we discovered that the dinner-hour was eight o'clock, not seven-thirty. +Susanna did not happen to know the exact approximate distance to +Fotheringay Crescent, but the maiden Boots affirmed that it was only two +minutes' drive, so we sat down in front of the fire to chat. + +It was Lady Baird's birthday feast to which we had been bidden, and +we had done our best to honour the occasion. We had prepared a large +bouquet tied with the Maclean tartan (Lady Baird is a Maclean), and had +printed in gold letters on one of the ribbons, 'Another for Hector,' the +battle-cry of the clan. We each wore a sprig of holly, because it is the +badge of the family, while I added a girdle and shoulder-knot of +tartan velvet to my pale green gown, and borrowed Francesca's emerald +necklace,--persuading her that she was too young to wear such jewels in +the old country. + +Francesca was miserably envious that she had not thought of tartans +first. "You may consider yourself 'geyan fine,' all covered over with +Scotch plaid, but I wouldn't be so 'kenspeckle' for worlds!" she said, +using expressions borrowed from Mrs. M'Collop; "and as for disguising +your nationality, do not flatter yourself that you look like anything +but an American. I forgot to tell you the conversation I overheard in +the tram this morning, between a mother and daughter, who were talking +about us, I dare say. 'Have they any proper frocks for so large a party, +Bella?' asked the mother. + +"'I thought I explained in the beginning, mamma, that they are +Americans.' + +"'Still, you know they are only travelling,--just passing through, as +it were; they may not be familiar with our customs, and we do want our +party to be a smart one.' + +"'Wait until you see them, mamma, and you will probably feel like hiding +your diminished head! It is my belief that if an American lady takes a +half-hour journey in a tram she carries full evening dress and a diamond +necklace, in case anything should happen on the way. I am not in the +least nervous about their appearance. I only hope that they will not be +too exuberant; American girls are so frightfully vivacious and informal, +I always feel as if I were being taken by the throat!'" + +"A picturesque, though rather vigorous expression; however, it does +no harm to be perfectly dressed," said Salemina consciously, putting a +steel embroidered slipper on the fender and settling the holly in the +silver folds of her gown; "then when they discover that we are all well +bred, and that one of us is intelligent, it will be the more credit to +the country that gave us birth." + +"Of course it is impossible to tell what country did give YOU birth," +retorted Francesca, "but that will only be to your advantage--away from +home!" + +Francesca is inflexibly, almost aggressively American, but Salemina is a +citizen of the world. If the United States should be involved in a war, +I am confident that Salemina would be in front with the other Gatling +guns, for in that case a principle would be at stake; but in all lesser +matters she is extremely unprejudiced. She prefers German music, Italian +climate, French dressmakers, English tailors, Japanese manners, and +American--American something--I have forgotten just what; it is either +the ice-cream soda or the form of government,--I can't remember which. + +"I wonder why they named it 'Fotheringay' Crescent," mused Francesca. +"Some association with Mary Stuart, of course. Poor, poor, pretty lady! +A free queen only six years, and think of the number of beds she slept +in, and the number of trees she planted; we have already seen, I am +afraid to say how many. When did she govern, when did she scheme, +above all when did she flirt, with all this racing and chasing over the +country? Mrs. M'Collop calls Anne of Denmark a 'sad scattercash' and +Mary an 'awfu' gadabout,' and I am inclined to agree with her. By the +way, when she was making my bed this morning, she told me that her +mother claimed descent from the Stewarts of Appin, whoever they may be. +She apologised for Queen Mary's defects as if she were a distant family +connection. If so, then the famous Stuart charm has been lost somewhere, +for Mrs M'Collop certainly possesses no alluring curves of temperament." + +"I am going to select some distinguished ancestors this very minute, +before I go to my first Edinburgh dinner," said I decidedly. "It seems +hard that ancestors should have everything to do with settling our +nationality and our position in life, and we not have a word to say. How +nice it would be to select one's own after one had arrived at years +of discretion, or to adopt different ones according to the country one +chanced to be visiting! I am going to do it; it is unusual, but there +must be a pioneer in every good movement. Let me think: do help me, +Salemina! I am a Hamilton to begin with; I might be descended from the +logical Sir William himself, and thus become the idol of the university +set!" + +"He died only about thirty years ago, and you would have to be his +daughter: that would never do," said Salemina. "Why don't you take +Thomas Hamilton, Earl of Melrose and Haddington? He was Secretary of +State, King's Advocate, Lord President of the Court of Session, and all +sorts of fine things. He was the one King James used to call 'Tam o' the +Cowgate'!" + +"Perfectly delightful! I don't care so much about his other titles, but +'Tam o' the Cowgate' is irresistible. I will take him. He was my--what +was he?" + +"He was at least your great-great-great-great-grandfather; that is a +safe distance. Then there's that famous Jenny Geddes, who flung her +fauld-stule at the Dean in St. Giles',--she was a Hamilton too, if you +fancy her!" + +"Yes, I'll take her with pleasure," I responded thankfully. "Of course +I don't know why she flung the stool,--it may have been very +reprehensible; but there is always good stuff in stool-flingers; it's +the sort of spirit one likes to inherit in diluted form. Now, whom will +you take?" + +"I haven't even a peg on which to hang a Scottish ancestor," said +Salemina disconsolately. + +"Oh, nonsense! think harder. Anybody will do as a starting-point; only +you must be honourable and really show relationship, as I did with Jenny +and Tam." + +"My aunt Mary-Emma married a Lindsay," ventured Salemina hesitatingly. + +"That will do," I answered delightedly. + + "'The Gordons gay in English blude + They wat their hose and shoon; + The Lindsays flew like fire aboot + Till a' the fray was dune.' + +"You can play that you are one of the famous 'licht Lindsays,' and you +can look up the particular ancestor in your big book. Now, Francesca, +it's your turn!" + +"I am American to the backbone," she declared, with insufferable +dignity. "I do not desire any foreign ancestors." + +"Francesca!" I expostulated. "Do you mean to tell me that you can dine +with a lineal descendant of Sir Fitzroy Donald Maclean, Baronet, of +Duart and Morven, and not make any effort to trace your genealogy back +further than your parents?" + +"If you goad me to desperation," she answered, "I will wear an +American flag in my hair, declare that my father is a Red Indian, or a +pork-packer, and talk about the superiority of our checking system and +hotels all the evening. I don't want to go, any way. It is sure to +be stiff and ceremonious, and the man who takes me in will ask me the +population of Chicago and the amount of wheat we exported last year,--he +always does." + +"I can't see why he should," said I. "I am sure you don't look as if you +knew." + +"My looks have thus far proved no protection," she replied sadly. +"Salemina is so flexible, and you are so dramatic, that you enter into +all these experiences with zest. You already more than half believe +in that Tam o' the Cowgate story. But there'll be nothing for me in +Edinburgh society; it will be all clergymen--" + +"Ministers" interjected Salemina,--"all ministers and professors. My +Redfern gowns will be unappreciated, and my Worth evening frocks worse +than wasted!" + +"There are a few thousand medical students," I said encouragingly, "and +all the young advocates, and a sprinkling of military men--they know +Worth frocks." + +"And," continued Salemina bitingly, "there will always be, even in an +intellectual city like Edinburgh, a few men who continue to escape +all the developing influences about them, and remain commonplace, +conventional manikins, devoted to dancing and flirting. Never fear, they +will find you!" + +This sounds harsh, but nobody minds Salemina, least of all Francesca, +who well knows that she is the apple of that spinster's eye. But at +this moment Susanna opens the door (timorously, as if there might be a +panther behind it) and announces the cab (in the same tone in which she +would announce the beast); we pick up our draperies, and are whirled off +by the lamiter to dine with the Scottish nobility. + + + +Chapter VI. Edinburgh society, past and present. + + + + 'Wha last beside his chair shall fa' + He is the king amang us three!' + +It was the Princess Dashkoff who said, in the latter part of the +eighteenth century, that of all the societies of men of talent she +had met with in her travels, Edinburgh's was the first in point of +abilities. + +One might make the same remark to-day, perhaps, and not depart widely +from the truth. One does not find, however, as many noted names as are +associated with the annals of the Cape and Poker Clubs or the Crochallan +Fencibles, those famous groups of famous men who met for relaxation (and +intoxication, I should think) at the old Isle of Man Arms or in Dawney's +Tavern in the Anchor Close. These groups included such shining lights +as Robert Fergusson the poet, and Adam Ferguson the historian and +philosopher, Gavin Wilson, Sir Henry Raeburn, David Hume, Erskine, +Lords Newton, Gillies, Monboddo, Hailes, Kames, Henry Mackenzie, and the +Ploughman Poet himself, who has kept alive the memory of the Crochallans +in many a jovial verse like that in which he describes Smellie, the +eccentric philosopher and printer:-- + + 'Shrewd Willie Smellie to Crochallan came, + The old cocked hat, the grey surtout the same, + His bristling beard just rising in its might; + 'Twas four long nights and days to shaving night'; + +or in the characteristic picture of William Dunbar, a wit of the time, +and the merriest of the Fencibles:-- + + 'As I cam by Crochallan + I cannily keekit ben; + Rattlin', roarin' Willie + Was sitting at yon boord en'; + Sitting at yon boord en', + And amang guid companie! + Rattlin', roarin' Willie, + Ye're welcome hame to me!' + +or in the verses on Creech, Burns's publisher, who left Edinburgh for a +time in 1789. The 'Willies,' by the way, seem to be especially inspiring +to the Scottish balladists. + + 'Oh, Willie was a witty wight, + And had o' things an unco slight! + Auld Reekie aye he keepit tight + And trig and braw; + But now they'll busk her like a fright-- + Willie's awa'!' + +I think perhaps the gatherings of the present time are neither quite as +gay nor quite as brilliant as those of Burns's day, when + + 'Willie brewed a peck o' maut, + An' Rob an' Allan cam to pree'; + +but the ideal standard of those meetings seems to be voiced in the +lines:-- + + 'Wha last beside his chair shall fa', + He is the king amang us three!' + +As they sit in their chairs nowadays to the very end of the feast, there +is doubtless joined with modern sobriety a soupcon of modern dulness and +discretion. + +To an American the great charm of Edinburgh is its leisurely atmosphere: +'not the leisure of a village arising from the deficiency of ideas and +motives, but the leisure of a city reposing grandly on tradition and +history; which has done its work, and does not require to weave its own +clothing, to dig its own coals, or smelt its own iron.' + +We were reminded of this more than once, and it never failed to depress +us properly. If one had ever lived in Pittsburg, Fall River, or +Kansas City, I should think it would be almost impossible to maintain +self-respect in a place like Edinburgh, where the citizens 'are released +from the vulgarising dominion of the hour.' Whenever one of Auld +Reekie's great men took this tone with me, I always felt as though I +were the germ in a half-hatched egg, and he were an aged and lordly cock +gazing at me pityingly through my shell. He, lucky creature, had lived +through all the struggles which I was to undergo; he, indeed, was +released from 'the vulgarising dominion of the hour'; but I, poor thing, +must grow and grow, and keep pecking at my shell, in order to achieve +existence. + +Sydney Smith says in one of his letters, 'Never shall I forget the +happy days passed there [in Edinburgh], amidst odious smells, barbarous +sounds, bad suppers, excellent hearts, and the most enlightened and +cultivated understandings.' His only criticism of the conversation of +that day (1797-1802) concerned itself with the prevalence of that form +of Scotch humour which was called wut; and with the disputations and +dialectics. We were more fortunate than Sydney Smith, because Edinburgh +has outgrown its odious smells, barbarous sounds, and bad suppers and, +wonderful to relate, has kept its excellent hearts and its enlightened +and cultivated understandings. As for mingled wut and dialectics, where +can one find a better foundation for dinner-table conversation? + +The hospitable board itself presents no striking differences from +our own, save the customs of serving sweets in soup-plates with +dessert-spoons, of a smaller number of forks on parade, of the +invariable fish-knife at each plate, of the prevalent 'savoury' and +'cold shape,' and the unusual grace and skill with which the hostess +carves. Even at very large dinners one occasionally sees a lady of high +degree severing the joints of chickens and birds most daintily, while +her lord looks on in happy idleness, thinking, perhaps, how greatly +times have changed for the better since the ages of strife and +bloodshed, when Scottish nobles + + 'Carved at the meal with gloves of steel, + And drank their wine through helmets barred.' + +The Scotch butler is not in the least like an English one. No man could +be as respectable as he looks, not even an elder of the kirk, whom he +resembles closely. He hands your plate as if it were a contribution-box, +and in his moments of ease, when he stands behind the 'maister,' I am +always expecting him to pronounce a benediction. The English butler, +when he wishes to avoid the appearance of listening to the conversation, +gazes with level eye into vacancy; the Scotch butler looks distinctly +heavenward, as if he were brooding on the principle of co-ordinate +jurisdiction with mutual subordination. It would be impossible for me to +deny the key of the wine-cellar to a being so steeped in sanctity, but +it has been done, I am told, in certain rare and isolated cases. + +As for toilets, the men dress like all other men (alas, and alas, that +we should say it, for we were continually hoping for a kilt!) though +there seems to be no survival of the finical Lord Napier's spirit. +Perhaps you remember that Lord and Lady Napier arrived at Castlemilk +in Lanarkshire with the intention of staying a week, but announced next +morning that a circumstance had occurred which rendered it indispensable +to return without delay to their seat in Selkirkshire. This was the only +explanation given, but it was afterwards discovered that Lord Napier's +valet had committed the grievous mistake of packing up a set of +neckcloths which did not correspond IN POINT OF DATE with the shirts +they accompanied! + +The ladies of the 'smart set' in Edinburgh wear French fripperies +and chiffons, as do their sisters every where, but the other women of +society dress a trifle more staidly than their cousins in London, +Paris, or New York. The sobriety of taste and severity of style that +characterise Scotswomen may be due, like Susanna Crum's dubieties, to +the haar, to the shorter catechism, or perhaps in some degree to the +presence of three branches of the Presbyterian Church among them; the +society that bears in its bosom three separate and antagonistic kinds of +Presbyterianism at the same time must have its chilly moments. + +In Lord Cockburn's time the 'dames of high and aristocratic breed' +must have been sufficiently awake to feminine frivolities to be both +gorgeously and extravagantly arrayed. I do not know in all literature +a more delicious and lifelike word-portrait than Lord Cockburn gives +of Mrs. Rochead, the Lady of Inverleith, in the Memorials. It is quite +worthy to hang beside a Raeburn canvas; one can scarce say more. + +'Except Mrs. Siddons in some of her displays of magnificent royalty, +nobody could sit down like the Lady of Inverleith. She would sail like a +ship from Tarshish, gorgeous in velvet or rustling silk, done up in +all the accompaniments of fans, ear-rings, and finger-rings, falling +sleeves, scent-bottle, embroidered bag, hoop, and train; managing all +this seemingly heavy rigging with as much ease as a full-blown swan does +its plumage. She would take possession of the centre of a large sofa, +and at the same moment, without the slightest visible exertion, cover +the whole of it with her bravery, the graceful folds seeming to lay +themselves over it, like summer waves. The descent from her carriage, +too, where she sat like a nautilus in its shell, was a display which no +one in these days could accomplish or even fancy. The mulberry-coloured +coach, apparently not too large for what it contained, though she alone +was in it; the handsome, jolly coachman and his splendid hammer-cloth +loaded with lace; the two respectful liveried footmen, one on each side +of the richly carpeted step,--these were lost sight of amidst the slow +majesty with which the Lady of Inverleith came down and touched the +earth.' + +My right-hand neighbour at Lady Baird's dinner was surprised at +my quoting Lord Cockburn. One's attendant squires here always seem +surprised when one knows anything; but they are always delighted, too, +so that the amazement is less trying. True, I had read the Memorials +only the week before, and had never heard of them previous to that time; +but that detail, according to my theories, makes no real difference. The +woman who knows how and when to 'read up,' who reads because she wants +to be in sympathy with a new environment; the woman who has wit and +perspective enough to be stimulated by novel conditions and kindled by +fresh influences, who is susceptible to the vibrations of other people's +history, is safe to be fairly intelligent and extremely agreeable, +if only she is sufficiently modest. I think my neighbour found me +thoroughly delightful after he discovered my point of view. He was an +earl; and it always takes an earl a certain length of time to understand +me. I scarcely know why, for I certainly should not think it courteous +to interpose any real barriers between the nobility and that portion of +the 'masses' represented in my humble person. + +It seemed to me at first that the earl did not apply himself to the +study of my national peculiarities with much assiduity, but wasted +considerable time in gazing at Francesca, who was opposite. She is +certainly very handsome, and I never saw her lovelier than at that +dinner; her eyes were like stars, and her cheeks and lips a splendid +crimson, for she was quarrelling with her attendant cavalier about the +relative merits of Scotland and America, and they apparently ceased to +speak to each other after the salad. + +When the earl had sufficiently piqued me by his devotion to his dinner +and his glances at Francesca, I began a systematic attempt to achieve +his (transient) subjugation. Of course I am ardently attached to Willie +Beresford and prefer him to any earl in Britain, but one's self-respect +demands something in the way of food. I could see Salemina at the far +end of the table radiant with success, the W.S. at her side bending ever +and anon to catch the (artificial) pearls of thought that dropped from +her lips. "Miss Hamilton appears simple" (I thought I heard her say); +"but in reality she is as deep as the Currie Brig!" Now where did she +get that allusion? And again, when the W.S. asked her whither she was +going when she left Edinburgh, "I hardly know," she replied pensively. +"I am waiting for the shade of Montrose to direct me, as the Viscount +Dundee said to your Duke of Gordon." The entranced Scotsman little knew +that she had perfected this style of conversation by long experience +with the Q.C.'s of England. Talk about my being as deep as the Currie +Brig (whatever it may be); Salemina is deeper than the Atlantic Ocean! I +shall take pains to inform her Writer to the Signet, after dinner, that +she eats sugar on her porridge every morning; that will show him her +nationality conclusively. + +The earl took the greatest interest in my new ancestors, and approved +thoroughly of my choice. He thinks I must have been named for Lady +Penelope Belhaven, who lived in Leven Lodge, one of the country villas +of the Earls of Leven, from whom he himself is descended. "Does that +make us relatives?" I asked. "Relatives, most assuredly," he replied, +"but not too near to destroy the charm of friendship." + +He thought it a great deal nicer to select one's own forebears than to +allow them all the responsibility, and said it would save a world of +trouble if the method could be universally adopted. He added that he +should be glad to part with a good many of his, but doubted whether I +would accept them, as they were 'rather a scratch lot.' (I use his own +language, which I thought delightfully easy for a belted earl.) He was +charmed with the story of Francesca and the lamiter, and offered to +drive me to Kildonan House, Helmsdale, on the first fine day. I told him +he was quite safe in making the proposition, for we had already had the +fine day, and we understood that the climate had exhausted itself and +retired for the season. + +The gentleman on my left, a distinguished Dean of the Thistle, gave me a +few moments' discomfort by telling me that the old custom of 'rounds' +of toasts still prevailed at Lady Baird's on formal occasions, and that +before the ladies retired every one would be called upon for appropriate +'sentiments.' + +"What sort of sentiments?" I inquired, quite overcome with terror. + +"Oh, epigrammatic sentences expressive of moral feelings or virtues," +replied my neighbour easily. "They are not quite as formal and hackneyed +now as they were in the olden time, when some of the favourite toasts +were 'May the pleasure of the evening bear the reflections of the +morning!' 'May the friends of our youth be the companions of our old +age!' 'May the honest heart never feel distress!' 'May the hand of +charity wipe the eye of sorrow!'" + +"I can never do it in the world!" I ejaculated. "Oh, one ought never, +never to leave one's own country! A light-minded and cynical English +gentleman told me that I should frequently be called upon to read hymns +and recite verses of Scripture at family dinners in Edinburgh, and I +hope I am always prepared to do that; but nobody warned me that I should +have to evolve epigrammatic sentiments on the spur of the moment." + +My confusion was so evident that the good dean relented and confessed +that he was imposing upon my ignorance. He made me laugh heartily at the +story of a poor dominie at Arndilly. He was called upon in his turn, at +a large party, and having nothing to aid him in an exercise to which +he was new save the example of his predecessors, lifted his glass after +much writhing and groaning and gave, "The reflection of the moon in the +cawm bosom of the lake!" + +At this moment Lady Baird glanced at me, and we all rose to go into the +drawing-room; but on the way from my chair to the door, whither the earl +escorted me, he said gallantly, "I suppose the men in your country +do not take champagne at dinner? I cannot fancy their craving it when +dining beside an American woman!" + +That was charming, though he did pay my country a compliment at my +expense. One likes, of course, to have the type recognised as fine; at +the same time his remark would have been more flattering if it had been +less sweeping. + +When I remember that he offered me his ancestors, asked me to drive two +hundred and eighty miles, and likened me to champagne, I feel that, +with my heart already occupied and my hand promised, I could hardly have +accomplished more in the course of a single dinner-hour. + + + +Chapter VII. Francesca meets th' unconquer'd Scot. + + + +Francesca's experiences were not so fortunate; indeed, I have never seen +her more out of sorts than she was during our long chat over the fire, +after our return to Breadalbane Terrace. + +"How did you get on with your delightful minister?" inquired Salemina +of the young lady, as she flung her unoffending wrap over the back of a +chair. "He was quite the handsomest man in the room; who is he?" + +"He is the Reverend Ronald Macdonald, and the most disagreeable, +condescending, ill-tempered prig I ever met!" + +"Why, Francesca!" I exclaimed. "Lady Baird speaks of him as her +favourite nephew, and says he is full of charm." + +"He is just as full of charm as he was when I met him," returned the +girl nonchalantly; "that is, he parted with none of it this evening. +He was incorrigibly stiff and rude, and oh! so Scotch! I believe if one +punctured him with a hat-pin, oatmeal would fly into the air!" + +"Doubtless you acquainted him, early in the evening, with the +immeasurable advantages of our sleeping-car system, the superiority of +our fast-running elevators, and the height of our buildings?" observed +Salemina. + +"I mentioned them," Francesca answered evasively. + +"You naturally inveighed against the Scotch climate?" + +"Oh, I alluded to it; but only when he said that our hot summers must be +insufferable." + +"I suppose you repeated the remark you made at luncheon, that the ladies +you had seen in Princes Street were excessively plain?" + +"Yes, I did!" she replied hotly; "but that was because he said that +American girls generally looked bloodless and frail. He asked if it +were really true that they ate chalk and slate pencils. Wasn't that +unendurable? I answered that those were the chief solid article of food, +but that after their complexions were established, so to speak, their +parents often allowed them pickles and native claret to vary the diet." + +"What did he say to that?" I asked. + +"Oh, he said, 'Quite so, quite so'; that was his invariable response to +all my witticisms. Then when I told him casually that the shops looked +very small and dark and stuffy here, and that there were not as many +tartans and plaids in the windows as we had expected, he remarked +that as to the latter point, the American season had not opened yet! +Presently he asserted that no royal city in Europe could boast ten +centuries of such glorious and stirring history as Edinburgh. I said it +did not appear to be stirring much at present, and that everything in +Scotland seemed a little slow to an American; that he could have no idea +of push or enterprise until he visited a city like Chicago. He retorted +that, happily, Edinburgh was peculiarly free from the taint of the +ledger and the counting-house; that it was Weimar without a Goethe, +Boston without its twang!" + +"Incredible!" cried Salemina, deeply wounded in her local pride. "He +never could have said 'twang' unless you had tried him beyond measure!" + +"I dare say I did; he is easily tried," returned Francesca. "I asked +him, sarcastically, if he had ever been in Boston. 'No,' he said, 'it is +not necessary to GO there! And while we are discussing these matters,' +he went on, 'how is your American dyspepsia these days,--have you +decided what is the cause of it?' + +"'Yes, we have,' said I, as quick as a flash; 'we have always taken in +more foreigners than we could assimilate!' I wanted to tell him that one +Scotsman of his type would upset the national digestion anywhere, but I +restrained myself." + +"I am glad you did restrain yourself--once," exclaimed Salemina. "What +a tactful person the Reverend Ronald must be, if you have reported +him faithfully! Why didn't you give him up, and turn to your other +neighbour?" + +"I did, as soon as I could with courtesy; but the man on my left was the +type that always haunts me at dinners; if the hostess hasn't one on her +visiting-list she imports one for the occasion. He asked me at once of +what material the Brooklyn Bridge is made. I told him I really didn't +know. Why should I? I seldom go over it. Then he asked me whether it was +a suspension bridge or a cantilever. Of course I didn't know; I am not +an engineer." + +"You are so tactlessly, needlessly candid," I expostulated. "Why didn't +you say boldly that the Brooklyn Bridge is a wooden cantilever, with +gutta-percha braces? He didn't know, or he wouldn't have asked you. He +couldn't find out until he reached home, and you would never have +seen him again; and if you had, and he had taunted you, you could have +laughed vivaciously and said you were chaffing. That is my method, and +it is the only way to preserve life in a foreign country. Even my +earl, who did not thirst for information (fortunately), asked me the +population of the Yellowstone Park, and I simply told him three hundred +thousand, at a venture." + +"That would never have satisfied my neighbour," said Francesca. "Finding +me in such a lamentable state of ignorance, he explained the principle +of his own stupid Forth Bridge to me. When I said I understood +perfectly, just to get into shallower water, where we wouldn't need any +bridge, the Reverend Ronald joined in the conversation, and asked me to +repeat the explanation to him. Naturally I couldn't, and he knew that I +couldn't when he asked me, so the bridge man (I don't know his name, +and don't care to know it) drew a diagram of the national idol on his +dinner-card and gave a dull and elaborate lecture upon it. Here is the +card, and now that three hours have intervened I cannot tell which way +to turn the drawing so as to make the bridge right side up; if there +is anything puzzling in the world, it is these architectural plans and +diagrams. I am going to pin it to the wall and ask the Reverend Ronald +which way it goes." + +"Do you mean that he will call upon us?" we cried in concert. + +"He asked if he might come and continue our 'stimulating' conversation, +and as Lady Baird was standing by I could hardly say no. I am sure of +one thing: that before I finish with him I will widen his horizon so +that he will be able to see something beside Scotland and his little +insignificant Fifeshire parish! I told him our country parishes in +America were ten times as large as his. He said he had heard that they +covered a good deal of territory, and that the ministers' salaries were +sometimes paid in pork and potatoes. That shows you the style of his +retorts!" + +"I really cannot decide which of you was the more disagreeable," said +Salemina; "if he calls, I shall not remain in the room." + +"I wouldn't gratify him by staying out," retorted Francesca. "He is +extremely good for the circulation; I think I was never so warm in my +life as when I talked with him; as physical exercise he is equal to +bicycling. The bridge man is coming to call, too. I made him a diagram +of Breadalbane Terrace, and a plan of the hall and staircase, on my +dinner-card. He was distinctly ungrateful; in fact, he remarked that he +had been born in this very house, but would not trust himself to find +his way upstairs with my plan as a guide. He also said the American +vocabulary was vastly amusing, so picturesque, unstudied, and fresh." + +"That was nice, surely," I interpolated. + +"You know perfectly well that it was an insult." + +"Francesca is very like that young man," laughed Salemina, "who, +whenever he engaged in controversy, seemed to take off his flesh and sit +in his nerves." + +"I'm not supersensitive," replied Francesca, "but when one's vocabulary +is called picturesque by a Britisher, one always knows he is thinking of +cowboys and broncos. However, I shifted the weight into the other scale +by answering 'Thank you. And your phraseology is just as unusual to +us.' 'Indeed?' he said with some surprise. 'I supposed our method of +expression very sedate and uneventful.' 'Not at all,' I returned, 'when +you say, as you did a moment ago, that you never eat potato to your +fish.' 'But I do not,' he urged obtusely. 'Very likely,' I argued, 'but +the fact is not of so much importance as the preposition. Now I eat +potato WITH my fish.' 'You make a mistake,' he said, and we both laughed +in spite of ourselves, while he murmured, 'eating potato WITH fish--how +extraordinary.' Well, the bridge man may not add perceptibly to the +gaiety of the nations, but he is better than the Reverend Ronald. I +forgot to say that when I chanced to be speaking of doughnuts, that +'unconquer'd Scot' asked me if a doughnut resembled a peanut? Can you +conceive such ignorance?" + +"I think you were not only aggressively American, but painfully +provincial," said Salemina, with some warmth. "Why in the world should +you drag doughnuts into a dinner-table conversation in Edinburgh? Why +not select topics of universal interest?" + +"Like the Currie Brig or the shade of Montrose," I murmured slyly. + +"To one who has ever eaten a doughnut, the subject is of transcendent +interest; and as for one who has not--well, he should be made to feel +his limitations," replied Francesca, with a yawn. "Come, let us forget +our troubles in sleep; it is after midnight." + +About half an hour later she came to my bedside, her dark hair hanging +over her white gown, her eyes still bright. + +"Penelope," she said softly, "I did not dare tell Salemina, and I should +not confess it to you save that I am afraid Lady Baird will complain of +me; but I was dreadfully rude to the Reverend Ronald! I couldn't help +it; he roused my worst passions. It all began with his saying he +thought international marriages presented even more difficulties to the +imagination than the other kind. I hadn't said anything about marriages +nor thought anything about marriages of any sort, but I told him +INSTANTLY I considered that every international marriage involved +two national suicides. He said that he shouldn't have put it quite so +forcibly, but that he hadn't given much thought to the subject. I said +that I had, and I thought we had gone on long enough filling the coffers +of the British nobility with American gold." + +"FRANCES!" I interrupted. "Don't tell me that you made that vulgar, +cheap newspaper assertion!" + +"I did," she replied stoutly, "and at the moment I only wished I could +make it stronger. If there had been anything cheaper or more vulgar, I +should have said it, but of course there isn't. Then he remarked that +the British nobility merited and needed all the support it could get in +these hard times, and asked if we had not cherished some intention in +the States, lately, of bestowing it in greenbacks instead of gold! I +threw all manners to the winds after that and told him that there were +no husbands in the world like American men, and that foreigners never +seemed to have any proper consideration for women. Now, were my remarks +any worse than his, after all, and what shall I do about it anyway?" + +"You should go to bed first," I murmured sleepily; "and if you ever have +an opportunity to make amends, which I doubt, you should devote yourself +to showing the Reverend Ronald the breadth of your own horizon instead +of trying so hard to broaden his. As you are extremely pretty, you may +possibly succeed; man is human, and I dare say in a month you will +be advising him to love somebody more worthy than yourself. (He could +easily do it!) Now don't kiss me again, for I am displeased with you; I +hate international bickering!" + +"So do I," agreed Francesca virtuously, as she plaited her hair, "and +there is no spectacle so abhorrent to every sense as a narrow-minded man +who cannot see anything outside of his own country. But he is awfully +good-looking,--I will say that for him: and if you don't explain me to +Lady Baird, I will write to Mr. Beresford about the earl. There was +no bickering there; it was looking at you two that made us think of +international marriages." + +"It must have suggested to you that speech about filling the coffers of +the British nobility," I replied sarcastically, "inasmuch as the earl +has twenty thousand pounds a year, probably, and I could barely buy two +gold hairpins to pin on the coronet. There, do go away and leave me in +peace!" + +"Good night again, then," she said, as she rose reluctantly from the +foot of the bed. "I doubt if I can sleep for thinking what a pity it +is that such an egotistic, bumptious, pugnacious, prejudiced, insular, +bigoted person should be so handsome! And who wants to marry him any +way, that he should be so distressed about international alliances? +One would think that all female America was sighing to lead him to the +altar!" + + + +Chapter VIII. 'What made th' Assembly shine?' + + + +Two or three days ago we noted an unusual though subdued air of +excitement at 22 Breadalbane Terrace, where for a week we had been +the sole lodgers. Mrs. Menzies, whom we call Mingess, has returned +to Kilconquhar, which she calls Kinyuchar; Miss Cockburn-Sinclair has +purchased her wedding outfit and gone back to Inverness, where she +will be greeted as Coburn-Sinkler; the Hepburn-Sciennes will be leaving +to-morrow, just as we have learned to pronounce their names; and the +sound of the scrubbing-brush is heard in the land. In corners where all +was clean and spotless before, Mrs. M'Collop is digging with the broom, +and the maiden Boots is following her with a damp cloth. The stair +carpets are hanging on lines in the back garden, and Susanna, with her +cap rakishly on one side, is always to be seen polishing the stair-rods. +Whenever we traverse the halls we are obliged to leap over pails of +suds, and Miss Diggity-Dalgety has given us two dinners which bore a +curious resemblance to washing-day repasts in suburban America. + +"Is it spring house-cleaning?" I ask Mistress M'Collop. + +"Na, na," she replies hurriedly; "it's the meenisters." + +On the 19th of May we are a maiden castle no longer. Black coats and +hats ring at the bell, and pass in and out of the different apartments. +The hall table is sprinkled with letters, visiting-cards, and programmes +which seem to have had the alphabet shaken out upon them, for they bear +the names of professors, doctors, reverends, and very reverends, and +fairly bristle with A.M.'s, M.A.'s, A.B.'s, D.D.'s, and LL.D.'s. The +voice of family prayer is lifted up from the dining-room floor, and +paraphrases and hymns float down the stairs from above. Their Graces the +Lord High Commissioner and the Marchioness of Heatherdale will arrive +to-day at Holyrood Palace, there to reside during the sittings of the +General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and to-morrow the Royal +Standard will be hoisted at Edinburgh Castle from reveille to retreat. +His Grace will hold a levee at eleven. Directly His Grace leaves +the palace after the levee, the guard of honour will proceed by the +Canongate to receive him on his arrival at St. Giles' Church, and will +then proceed to Assembly Hall to receive him on his arrival there. The +Sixth Inniskilling Dragoons and the First Battalion Royal Scots will +be in attendance, and there will be Unicorns, Carricks, pursuivants, +heralds, mace-bearers, ushers, and pages, together with the +Purse-bearer, and the Lyon King-of-Arms, and the national anthem, and +the royal salute; for the palace has awakened and is 'mimicking its +past.' + +'Should the weather be wet, the troops will be cloaked at the discretion +of the commanding officer.' They print this instruction as a matter of +form, and of course every man has his macintosh ready. The only hope +lies in the fact that this is a national function, and 'Queen's weather' +is a possibility. The one personage for whom the Scottish climate will +occasionally relax is Her Majesty Queen Victoria, who for sixty years +has exerted a benign influence on British skies and at least secured +sunshine on great parade days. Such women are all too few! + +In this wise enters His Grace the Lord High Commissioner to open the +General Assembly of the Church of Scotland; and on the same day there +arrives by the railway (but travelling first class) the Moderator of +the Church of Scotland Free, to convene its separate supreme Courts +in Edinburgh. He will have no Union Jacks, Royal Standards, Dragoons, +bands, or pipers; he will bear his own purse and stay at an hotel; but +when the final procession of all comes, he will probably march beside +His Grace the Lord High Commissioner, and they will talk together, not +of dead-and-gone kingdoms, but of the one at hand, where there are +no more divisions in the ranks, and where all the soldiers are simply +'king's men,' marching to victory under the inspiration of a common +watchword. + +It is a matter of regret to us that the U.P.'s, the third branch of +Scottish Presbyterianism, could not be holding an Assembly during this +same week, so that we might the more easily decide in which flock we +really belong. 22 Breadalbane Terrace now represents all shades of +religious opinion within the bounds of Presbyterianism. We have an +Elder, a Professor of Biblical Criticism, a Majesty's Chaplain, and even +an ex-Moderator under our roof, and they are equally divided between the +Free and the Established bodies. + +Mrs. M'Collop herself is a pillar of the Free Kirk, but she has no +prejudice in lodgers, and says so long as she 'mak's her rent she doesna +care aboot their releegious principles.' Miss Diggity-Dalgety is the +sole representative of United Presbyterianism in the household, and she +is somewhat gloomy in Assembly time. To belong to a dissenting body, and +yet to cook early and late for the purpose of fattening one's religious +rivals, is doubtless trying to the temper; and then she asserts that +'meenisters are aye tume [empty].' + +"You must put away your Scottish ballads and histories now, Salemina, +and keep your Concordance and your umbrella constantly at hand." + +This I said as we stood on George IV. Bridge and saw the ministers +glooming down from the Mound in a dense Assembly fog. As the presence +of any considerable number of priests on an ocean steamer is supposed +to bring rough weather, so the addition of a few hundred parsons to the +population of Edinburgh is believed to induce rain,--or perhaps I should +say, more rain. + +Of course, when one is in perfect bodily health one can more readily +resist the infection of disease. Similarly if Scottish skies were not +ready and longing to pour out rain, were not ignobly weak in holding it +back, they would not be so susceptible to the depressing influences of +visiting ministers. This is Francesca's theory as stated to the Reverend +Ronald, who was holding an umbrella over her ungrateful head at the +time; and she went on to boast of a convention she once attended in +California, where twenty-six thousand Christian Endeavourers were unable +to dim the American sunshine, though they stayed ten days. + +"Our first duty, both to ourselves and to the community," I continued to +Salemina, "is to learn how there can be three distinct kinds of proper +Presbyterianism. Perhaps it would be a graceful act on our part if we +should each espouse a different kind; then there would be no feeling +among our Edinburgh friends. And again what is this 'union' of which we +hear murmurs? Is it religious or political? Is it an echo of the +1707 Union you explained to us last week, or is it a new one? What is +Disestablishment? What is Disruption? Are they the same thing? What is +the Sustentation Fund? What was the Non-Intrusion party? What was the +Dundas Despotism? What is the argument at present going on about taking +the Shorter Catechism out of the schools? What is the Shorter Catechism, +any way,--or at least what have they left out of the Longer Catechism to +make it shorter,--and is the length of the Catechism one of the points +of difference? then when we have looked up Chalmers and Candlish, we +can ask the ex-Moderator and the Professor of Biblical Criticism to tea; +separately, of course, lest there should be ecclesiastical quarrels." + +Salemina and Francesca both incline to the Established church, I lean +instinctively toward the Free; but that does not mean that we have +any knowledge of the differences that separate them. Salemina is a +conservative in all things; she loves law, order, historic associations, +old customs; and so when there is a regularly established national +church,--or, for that matter, a regularly established anything, +she gravitates to it by the law of her being. Francesca's religious +convictions, when she is away from her own minister and native land, are +inclined to be flexible. The church that enters Edinburgh with a marquis +and a marchioness representing the Crown, the church that opens its +Assembly with splendid processions and dignified pageants, the church +that dispenses generous hospitality from Holyrood Palace,--above all, +the church that escorts its Lord High Commissioner from place to place +with bands and pipers,--that is the church to which she pledges her +constant presence and enthusiastic support. + +As for me, I believe I am a born protestant, or 'come-outer,' as they +used to call dissenters in the early days of New England. I have not yet +had time to study the question, but as I lack all knowledge of the other +two branches of Presbyterianism, I am enabled to say unhesitatingly that +I belong to the Free Kirk. To begin with, the very word 'free' has +a fascination for the citizen of a republic; and then my theological +training was begun this morning by a gifted young minister of Edinburgh +whom we call the Friar, because the first time we saw him in his gown +and bands (the little spot of sheer whiteness beneath the chin, that +lends such added spirituality to a spiritual face) we fancied that +he looked like some pale brother of the Church in the olden time. His +pallor, in a land of rosy redness and milky whiteness; his smooth, fair +hair, which in the light from the stained-glass window above the pulpit +looked reddish gold; the Southern heat of passionate conviction that +coloured his slow Northern speech; the remoteness of his personality; +the weariness of his deep-set eyes, that bespoke such fastings and +vigils as he probably never practised,--all this led to our choice of +the name. + +As we walked toward St. Andrew's Church and Tanfield Hall, where he +insisted on taking me to get the 'proper historical background,' he told +me about the great Disruption movement. He was extremely eloquent,--so +eloquent that the image of Willie Beresford tottered continually on its +throne, and I found not the slightest difficulty in giving an unswerving +allegiance to the principles presented by such an orator. + +We went first to St. Andrew's, where the General Assembly met in +1843, and where the famous exodus of the Free Protesting Church took +place,--one of the most important events in the modern history of the +United Kingdom. + +The movement was promoted by the great Dr. Chalmers and his party, +mainly to abolish the patronage of livings, then in the hands of certain +heritors or patrons, who might appoint any minister they wished, without +consulting the congregation. Needless to say, as a free-born American +citizen, and never having had a heritor in the family, my blood easily +boiled at the recital of such tyranny. In 1834 the Church had passed a +law of its own, it seems, ordaining that no presentee to a parish should +be admitted, if opposed by the majority of the male communicants. That +would have been well enough could the State have been made to agree, +though I should have gone further, personally, and allowed the female +communicants to have some voice in the matter. + +The Friar took me into a particularly chilly historic corner, and, +leaning against a damp stone pillar, painted the scene in St. Andrew's +when the Assembly met in the presence of a great body of spectators, +while a vast throng gathered without, breathlessly awaiting the result. +No one believed that any large number of ministers would relinquish +livings and stipends and cast their bread upon the waters for what many +thought a 'fantastic principle.' Yet when the Moderator left his +place, after reading a formal protest signed by one hundred and twenty +ministers and seventy-two elders, he was followed first by Dr. Chalmers, +and then by four hundred and seventy men, who marched in a body to +Tanfield Hall, where they formed themselves into the General Assembly +of the Free Church of Scotland. When Lord Jeffrey was told of it an +hour later, he exclaimed, 'Thank God for Scotland! there is not another +country on earth where such a deed could be done!' And the Friar +reminded me proudly of Macaulay's saying that the Scots had made +sacrifices for the sake of religious opinion for which there was no +parallel in the annals of England. On the next Sunday after these +remarkable scenes in Edinburgh there were heart-breaking farewells, +so the Friar said, in many village parishes, when the minister, in +dismissing his congregation, told them that he had ceased to belong to +the Established Church and would neither preach nor pray in that pulpit +again; that he had joined the Free Protesting Church of Scotland, and, +God willing, would speak the next Sabbath morning at the manse door to +as many as cared to follow him. "What affecting leave-takings there must +have been!" the Friar exclaimed. "When my grandfather left his church +that May morning, only fifteen members remained behind, and he could +hear the more courageous say to the timid ones, 'Tak' your Bible and +come awa', mon!' Was not all this a splendid testimony to the power +of principle and the sacred demands of conscience?" I said "Yea" most +heartily, for the spirit of Jenny Geddes stirred within me that morning, +and under the spell of the Friar's kindling eye and eloquent voice I +positively gloried in the valiant achievements of the Free Church. +It would always be easier for a woman to say, "Yea" than "Nay" to the +Friar. When he left me in Breadalbane Terrace I was at heart a member of +his congregation in good (and irregular) standing, ready to teach in +his Sunday-school, sing in his choir, visit his aged and sick poor, +and especially to stand between him and a too admiring feminine +constituency. + +When I entered the drawing-room, I found that Salemina had just enjoyed +an hour's conversation with the ex-Moderator of the opposite church +wing. + +"Oh, my dear," she sighed, "you have missed such a treat! You have +no conception of these Scottish ministers of the Establishment,--such +culture, such courtliness of manner, such scholarship, such +spirituality, such wise benignity of opinion! I asked the doctor to +explain the Disruption movement to me, and he was most interesting and +lucid, and most affecting, too, when he described the misunderstandings +and misconceptions that the Church suffered in those terrible days of +1843, when its very life-blood, as well as its integrity and unity, were +threatened by the foes in its own household; when breaches of faith and +trust occurred on all sides, and dissents and disloyalties shook it to +its very foundation! You see, Penelope, I have never fully understood +the disagreements about heritors and livings and state control before, +but here is the whole matter in a nut-sh--" + +"My dear Salemina," I interposed, with dignity, "you will pardon me, +I am sure, when I tell you that any discussion on this point would be +intensely painful to me, as I now belong to the Free Kirk." + +"Where have you been this morning?" she asked, with a piercing glance. + +"To St. Andrew's and Tanfield Hall." + +"With whom?" + +"With the Friar." + +"I see! Happy the missionary to whom you incline your ear, +FIRST!"--which I thought rather inconsistent of Salemina, as she had +been converted by precisely the same methods and in precisely the same +length of time as had I, the only difference being in the ages of our +respective missionaries, one being about five-and-thirty, and other +five-and-sixty. Even this is to my credit after all, for if one can +be persuaded so quickly and fully by a young and comparatively +inexperienced man, it shows that one must be extremely susceptible to +spiritual influences or--something. + + + +Chapter IX. Omnia presbyteria est divisa in partes tres. + + + +Religion in Edinburgh is a theory, a convention, a fashion (both humble +and aristocratic), a sensation, an intellectual conviction, an emotion, +a dissipation, a sweet habit of the blood; in fact, it is, it seems to +me, every sort of thing it can be to the human spirit. + +When we had finished our church toilettes, and came into the +drawing-room, on the first Sunday morning, I remember that we found +Francesca at the window. + +"There is a battle, murder, or sudden death going on in the square +below," she said. "I am going to ask Susanna to ask Mrs. M'Collop what +it means. Never have I seen such a crowd moving peacefully, with no +excitement or confusion, in one direction. Where can the people be +going? Do you suppose it is a fire? Why, I believe... it cannot be +possible... yes, they certainly are disappearing in that big church on +the corner; and millions, simply millions and trillions, are coming in +the other direction,--toward St. Knox's." + +Impressive as was this morning church-going, a still greater surprise +awaited us at seven o'clock in the evening, when the crowd blocked the +streets on two sides of a church near Breadalbane Terrace; and though +it was quite ten minutes before service when we entered, Salemina and I +only secured the last two seats in the aisle, and Francesca was obliged +to sit on the steps of the pulpit or seek a sermon elsewhere. + +It amused me greatly to see Francesca sitting on pulpit steps, her Paris +gown and smart toque in close juxtaposition to the rusty bonnet and +bombazine dress of a respectable elderly tradeswoman. The church +officer entered first, bearing the great Bible and hymn-book, which he +reverently placed on the pulpit cushions; and close behind him, to +our entire astonishment, came the Reverend Ronald Macdonald, evidently +exchanging with the regular minister of the parish, whom we had come +especially to hear. I pitied Francesca's confusion and embarrassment, +but I was too far from her to offer an exchange of seats, and through +the long service she sat there at the feet of her foe, so near that +she could have touched the hem of his gown as he knelt devoutly for his +first silent prayer. + +Perhaps she was thinking of her last interview with him, when she +descanted at length on that superfluity of naughtiness and Biblical +pedantry which, she asserted, made Scottish ministers preach from +out-of-the-way texts. + +"I have never been able to find my place in the Bible since I arrived," +she complained to Salemina, when she was quite sure that Mr. Macdonald +was listening to her; and this he generally was, in my opinion, no +matter who chanced to be talking. "What with their skipping and hopping +about from Haggai to Philemon, Habakkuk to Jude, and Micah to Titus, in +their readings, and then settling on seventh Nahum, sixth Zephaniah, +or second Calathumpians for the sermon, I do nothing but search the +Scriptures in the Edinburgh churches,--search, search, search, until +some Christian by my side or in the pew behind me notices my hapless +plight, and hands me a Bible opened at the text. Last Sunday it was +Obadiah first, fifteenth, 'For the day of the Lord is near upon all the +heathen.' It chanced to be a returned missionary who was preaching on +that occasion; but the Bible is full of heathen, and why need he have +chosen a text from Obadiah, poor little Obadiah one page long, slipped +in between Amos and Jonah, where nobody but an elder could find him?" +If Francesca had not seen with wicked delight the Reverend Ronald's +expression of anxiety, she would never have spoken of second +Calathumpians; but of course he has no means of knowing how unlike +herself she is when in his company. + + +To go back to our first Sunday worship in Edinburgh. The church officer +closed the door of the pulpit on the Reverend Ronald, and I thought I +heard the clicking of a lock; at all events, he returned at the close of +the services to liberate him and escort him back to the vestry; for the +entrances and exits of this beadle, or 'minister's man,' as the church +officer is called in the country districts, form an impressive part +of the ceremonies. If he did lock the minister into the pulpit, it is +probably only another national custom, like the occasional locking in +of the passengers in a railway train, and may be positively necessary in +the case of such magnetic and popular preachers as Mr. Macdonald, or the +Friar. + +I have never seen such attention, such concentration, as in these great +congregations of the Edinburgh churches. As nearly as I can judge, it +is intellectual rather than emotional; but it is not a tribute paid to +eloquence alone, it is habitual and universal, and is yielded loyally to +insufferable dulness when occasion demands. + +When the text is announced, there is an indescribable rhythmic movement +forward, followed by a concerted rustle of Bible leaves; not the rustle +of a few Bibles in a few pious pews, but the rustle of all of them in +all the pews,--and there are more Bibles in an Edinburgh Presbyterian +church than one ever sees anywhere else, unless it be in the warehouses +of the Bible Societies. + +The text is read twice clearly, and another rhythmic movement follows +when the books are replaced on the shelves. Then there is a delightful +settling back of the entire congregation, a snuggling comfortably into +corners and a fitting of shoulders to the pews.--not to sleep, however; +an older generation may have done that under the strain of a two-hour +'wearifu' dreich' sermon, but these church-goers are not to be caught +napping. They wear, on the contrary, a keen, expectant, critical look, +which must be inexpressibly encouraging to the minister, if he has +anything to say. If he has not (and this is a possibility in Edinburgh, +as it is everywhere else), then I am sure it is wisdom for the beadle to +lock him in, lest he flee when he meets those searching eyes. + +The Edinburgh sermon, though doubtless softened in outline in these +later years, is still a more carefully built discourse than one +ordinarily hears out of Scotland, being constructed on conventional +lines of doctrine, exposition, logical inference, and practical +application. Though modern preachers do not announce the division of +their subject into heads and sub-heads, firstlies and secondlies and +finallies, my brethren, there seems to be the old framework underneath +the sermon, and every one recognises it as moving silently below the +surface; at least, I always fancy that as the minister finishes one +point and attacks another the younger folk fix their eagle eyes on him +afresh, and the whole congregation sits up straighter and listens more +intently, as if making mental notes. They do not listen so much as if +they were enthralled, though they often are, and have good reason to be, +but as if they were to pass an examination on the subject afterwards; +and I have no doubt that this is the fact. + +The prayers are many, and are divided, apparently, like those of the +liturgies, into petitions, confessions, and aspirations; not forgetting +the all-embracing one with which we are perfectly familiar in our native +land, in which the preacher commends to the Fatherly care every +animate and inanimate thing not mentioned specifically in the foregoing +supplications. It was in the middle of this compendious petition, 'the +lang prayer,' that rheumatic old Scottish dames used to make a practice +of 'cheengin' the fit,' as they stood devoutly through it. "When the +meenister comes to the 'ingetherin' o' the Gentiles,' I ken weel it's +time to cheenge legs, for then the prayer is jist half dune," said a +good sermon-taster of Fife. + +The organ is finding its way rapidly into the Scottish kirks (how can +the shade of John Knox endure a 'kist o' whistles' in good St. Giles'?), +but it is not used yet in some of those we attend most frequently. +There is a certain quaint solemnity, a beautiful austerity, in the +unaccompanied singing of hymns that touches me profoundly. I am often +carried very high on the waves of splendid church music, when the +organ's thunder rolls 'through vaulted aisles' and the angelic voices +of a trained choir chant the aspirations of my soul for me; and when +an Edinburgh congregation stands, and the precentor leads in that noble +paraphrase, + + 'God of our fathers, be the God + Of their succeeding race,' + +there is a certain ascetic fervour in it that seems to me the perfection +of worship. It may be that my Puritan ancestors are mainly responsible +for this feeling, or perhaps my recently adopted Jenny Geddes is +a factor in it; of course, if she were in the habit of flinging +fauldstules at Deans, she was probably the friend of truth and the foe +of beauty, so far as it was in her power to separate them. + +There is no music during the offertory in these churches, and this, too, +pleases my sense of the fitness of things. It cannot soften the woe +of the people who are disinclined to the giving away of money, and the +cheerful givers need no encouragement. For my part, I like to sit, quite +undistracted by soprano solos, and listen to the refined tinkle of +the sixpences and shillings, and the vulgar chink of the pennies and +ha'pennies, in the contribution-boxes. Country ministers, I am told, +develop such an acute sense of hearing that they can estimate the amount +of the collection before it is counted. There is often a huge pewter +plate just within the church door, in which the offerings are placed as +the worshippers enter or leave; and one always notes the preponderance +of silver at the morning, and of copper at the evening services. It is +perhaps needless to say that before Francesca had been in Edinburgh +a fortnight she asked Mr. Macdonald if it were true that the Scots +continued coining the farthing for years and years, merely to have a +piece of money serviceable for church offerings! + +As to social differences in the congregations we are somewhat at sea. +We tried to arrive at a conclusion by the hats and bonnets, than +which there is usually no more infallible test. On our first Sunday +we attended the Free Kirk in the morning, and the Established in the +evening. The bonnets of the Free Kirk were so much the more elegant that +we said to one another, "This is evidently the church of society, though +the adjective 'Free' should by rights attract the masses." On the +second Sunday we reversed the order of things, and found the Established +bonnets much finer than the Free bonnets, which was a source of +mystification to us, until we discovered that it was a question of +morning or evening service, not of the form of Presbyterianism. We +think, on the whole, that, taking town and country congregations +together, millinery has not flourished under Presbyterianism,--it seems +to thrive better in the Romish atmosphere of France; but the Disruption +at least, has had nothing to answer for in the matter, as it appears +simply to have parted the bonnets of Scotland in twain, as Moses divided +the Red Sea, and left good and evil on both sides. + +I can never forget our first military service at St. Giles'. We left +Breadalbane Terrace before nine in the morning and walked along the +beautiful curve of street that sweeps around the base of the Castle +Rock,--walked on through the poverty and squalor of the High Street, +keeping in view the beautiful lantern tower as a guiding-star, till we +heard + + 'The murmur of the city crowd; + And, from his steeple, jingling loud, + St. Giles's mingling din.' + +We joined the throng outside the venerable church, and awaited the +approach of the soldiers from the Castle parade-ground; for it is +from there they march in detachments to the church of their choice. A +religion they must have, and if, when called up and questioned about it, +they have forgotten to provide themselves, or have no preference as to +form of worship, they are assigned to one by the person in authority. +When the regiments are assembled on the parade-ground of a Sunday +morning, the first command is, 'Church of Scotland, right about face, +quick march!'--the bodies of men belonging to other denominations +standing fast until their turn comes to move. It is said that a new +officer once gave the command, 'Church of Scotland, right about face, +quick march! Fancy releegions, stay where ye are!' + +Just as we were being told this story by an attendant squire, there was +a burst of scarlet and a blare of music, and down Castlehill and the +Lawnmarket into Parliament Square marched hundreds of redcoats, the +Highland pipers (otherwise the Olympian gods) swinging in front, leaving +the American female heart prostrate beneath their victorious tread. The +strains of music that in the distance sounded so martial and triumphant +we recognised in a moment as 'Abide with me,' and never did the fine +old tune seem more majestic than when it marked a measure for the steady +tramp, tramp, tramp, of those soldierly feet. As 'The March of the +Cameron Men,' piped from the green steeps of Castlehill, had aroused in +us thoughts of splendid victories on the battlefield, so did this simple +hymn awake the spirit of the church militant; a no less stern but more +spiritual soldiership, in which 'the fruit of righteousness is sown in +peace of them that make peace.' + +As I fell asleep on that first Sunday night in Edinburgh, after the +somewhat unusual experience of three church services in a single day, +three separate notes of memory floated in and out of the fabric of my +dreams; the sound of the soldiers' feet marching into old St. Giles' to +the strains of 'Abide with me'; the voice of the Reverend Ronald +ringing out with manly insistence: 'It is aspiration that counts, not +realisation; pursuit, not achievement; quest, not conquest!'--and the +closing phrases of the Friar's prayer; 'When Christ has forgiven us, +help us to forgive ourselves! Help us to forgive ourselves so fully +that we can even forget ourselves, remembering only Him! And so let His +kingdom come; we ask it for the King's sake, Amen.' + + + +Chapter X. Mrs. M'Collop as a sermon-taster. + + + +Even at this time of Assemblies, when the atmosphere is almost +exclusively clerical and ecclesiastical, the two great church armies +represented here certainly conceal from the casual observer all +rivalries and jealousies, if indeed they cherish any. As for the two +dissenting bodies, the Church of the Disruption and the Church of the +Secession have been keeping company, so to speak, for some years, with +a distant eye to an eventual union. In the light of all this pleasant +toleration, it seems difficult to realise that earlier Edinburgh, where, +we learned from old parochial records of 1605, Margaret Sinclair was +cited by the Session of the Kirk for being at the 'Burne' for water on +the Sabbath; that Janet Merling was ordered to make public repentance +for concealing a bairn unbaptized in her house for the space of twenty +weeks and calling said bairn Janet; that Pat Richardson had to crave +mercy for being found in his boat in time of afternoon service; and that +Janet Walker, accused of having visitors in her house in sermon-time, +had to confess her offence and on her knees crave mercy of God AND the +Kirk Session (which no doubt was much worse) under penalty of a hundred +pounds Scots. Possibly there are people yet who would prefer to pay a +hundred pounds rather than hear a sermon, but they are few. + +It was in the early seventeen hundred and thirties when Allan Ramsay, +'in fear and trembling of legal and clerical censure,' lent out the +plays of Congreve and Farquhar from his famous High Street library. In +1756 it was, that the Presbytery of Edinburgh suspended all clergymen +who had witnessed the representation of Douglas, that virtuous tragedy +written, to the dismay of all Scotland, by a minister of the Kirk. That +the world, even the theological world, moves with tolerable rapidity +when once set in motion, is evinced by the fact that on Mrs. Siddons' +second engagement in Edinburgh, in the summer of 1785, vast crowds +gathered about the doors of the theatre, not at night alone, but in the +day, to secure places. It became necessary to admit them first at three +in the afternoon and then at noon, and eventually 'the General Assembly +of the Church then in session was compelled to arrange its meetings with +reference to the appearance of the great actress.' How one would have +enjoyed hearing that Scotsman say, after one of her most splendid +flights of tragic passion, 'That's no bad!' We have read of her dismay +at this ludicrous parsimony of praise, but her self-respect must have +been restored when the Edinburgh ladies fainted by dozens during her +impersonation of Isabella in The Fatal Marriage. + +Since Scottish hospitality is well-nigh inexhaustible, it is not +strange that from the moment Edinburgh streets began to be crowded +with ministers, our drawing-room table began to bear shoals of engraved +invitations of every conceivable sort, all equally unfamiliar to our +American eyes. + +'The Purse-Bearer is commanded by the Lord High Commissioner and the +Marchioness of Heatherdale to invite Miss Hamilton to a Garden Party at +the Palace of Holyrood House, on the 27th of May. WEATHER PERMITTING.' + +'The General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland admits Miss +Hamilton to any gallery on any day.' + +'The Marchioness of Heatherdale is At Home on the 26th of May from a +quarter-past nine in the evening. Palace of Holyrood House.' + +'The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland is +At Home in the Library of the New College on Saturday, the 22nd of May, +from eight to ten in the evening.' + +'The Moderator asks the pleasure of Miss Hamilton's presence at a +Breakfast to be given on the morning of the 25th May at Dunedin Hotel.' + +We determined to go to all these functions impartially, tracking thus +the Presbyterian lion to his very lair, and observing his home as well +as his company manners. In everything that related to the distinctively +religious side of the proceedings we sought advice from Mrs. M'Collop, +while we went to Lady Baird for definite information on secular matters. +We also found an unexpected ally in the person of our own ex-Moderator's +niece, Miss Jean Dalziel (Deeyell). She has been educated in Paris, +but she must always have been a delightfully breezy person, quite too +irrepressible to be affected by Scottish haar or theology. "Go to the +Assemblies, by all means," she said, "and be sure and get places for the +heresy case. These are no longer what they once were,--we are getting +lamentably weak and gelatinous in our beliefs,--but there is an +unusually nice one this year; the heretic is very young and handsome, +and quite wicked, as ministers go. Don't fail to be presented at the +Marchioness's court at Holyrood, for it is a capital preparation for the +ordeal of Her Majesty and Buckingham Palace. 'Nothing fit to wear'? +You have never seen the people who go or you wouldn't say that! I even +advise you to attend one of the breakfasts; it can't do you any serious +or permanent injury so long as you eat something before you go. Oh no, +it doesn't matter,--whichever one you choose, you will cheerfully omit +the other; for I avow, as a Scottish spinster, and the niece of an +ex-Moderator, that to a stranger and a foreigner the breakfasts are +worse than Arctic explorations. If you do not chance to be at the table +of honour--" + +"The gifted Miss Hamilton is always at the table of honour; unless she +is placed there she refuses to eat, and then the universe rocks to its +centre," interpolated Francesca impertinently. + +"It is true," continued Miss Dalziel, "you will often sit beside a +minister or a minister's wife, who will make you scorn the sordid +appetites of flesh, but if you do not, then eat as little as may be, and +flee up the Mound to whichever Assembly is the Mecca of your soul!" + +"My niece's tongue is an unruly member," said the ex-Moderator, who was +present at this diatribe, "and the principal mistakes she makes in +her judgment of these clerical feasts is that she criticises them as +conventional repasts, whereas they are intended to be informal meetings +together of people who wish to be better acquainted." + +"Hot bacon and eggs would be no harm to friendship," answered Miss +Dalziel, with an affectionate moue. + +"Cold bacon and eggs is better than cold piety," said the ex-Moderator, +"and it may be a good discipline for fastidious young ladies who have +been spoiled by Parisian breakfasts." + +It is to Mrs. M'Collop that we owe our chief insight into technical +church matters, although we seldom agree with her 'opeenions' after +we gain our own experience. She never misses hearing one sermon on +a Sabbath, and oftener she listens to two or three. Neither does she +confine herself to the ministrations of a single preacher, but roves +from one sanctuary to another, seeking the bread of life,--often, +however, according to her own account, getting a particularly +indigestible 'stane.' + +She is thus a complete guide to the Edinburgh pulpit, and when she is +making a bed in the morning she dispenses criticism in so large and +impartial a manner that it would make the flesh of the 'meenistry' +creep were it overheard. I used to think Ian Maclaren's sermon-taster +a possible exaggeration of an existent type, but I now see that she is +truth itself. + +"Ye'll be tryin' anither kirk the morn?" suggests Mrs. M'Collop, +spreading the clean Sunday sheet over the mattress. "Wha did ye hear the +Sawbath that's bye? Dr. A? Ay, I ken him ower weel; he's been there +for fifteen years an' mair. Ay, he's a gifted mon--AFF AN' ON!" with an +emphasis showing clearly that, in her estimation, the times when he is +'aff' outnumber those when he is 'on'... "Ye havena heard auld Dr. B +yet?" (Here she tucks in the upper sheet tidily at the foot.) "He's +a graund strachtforrit mon, is Dr. B, forbye he's growin' maist awfu' +dreich in his sermons, though when he's that wearisome a body canna +heed him wi'oot takin' peppermints to the kirk, he's nane the less, at +seeventy-sax, a better mon than the new asseestant. Div ye ken the new +asseestant? He's a wee-bit, finger-fed mannie, ower sma' maist to wear +a goon! I canna thole him, wi' his lang-nebbit words, explainin' an' +expoundin' the gude Book as if it had jist come oot! The auld doctor's +nae kirk-filler, but he gies us fu' meesure, pressed doun an' rinnin' +ower, nae bit-pickin's like the haverin' asseestant; it's my opeenion +he's no soond, wi' his parleyvoos an' his clishmaclavers!... Mr. C?" +(Now comes the shaking and straightening and smoothing of the first +blanket.) "Ay, he's weel eneuch! I mind aince he prayed for oor Free +Assembly, an' then he turned roon' an' prayed for the Estaiblished, +maist in the same breath,--he's a broad, leeberal mon is Mr. C!... Mr. +D? Ay, I ken him fine; he micht be waur, though he's ower fond o' the +kittle pairts o' the Old Testament; but he reads his sermon frae the +paper, an' it's an auld sayin', 'If a meenister canna mind [remember] +his ain discoorse, nae mair can the congregation be expectit to mind +it.'... Mr. E? He's my ain meenister." (She has a pillow in her mouth +now, but though she is shaking it as a terrier would a rat, and drawing +on the linen slip at the same time, she is still intelligible between +the jerks). "Susanna says his sermon is like claith made o' soond 'oo +[wool] wi' a guid twined thread, an' wairpit an' weftit wi' doctrine. +Susanna kens her Bible weel, but she's never gaed forrit." (To 'gang +forrit' is to take the communion). "Dr. F? I ca' him the greetin' +doctor! He's aye dingin' the dust oot o' the poopit cushions, an' +greetin' ower the sins o' the human race, an' eespecially o' his ain +congregation. He's waur sin his last wife sickened an' slippit awa'. +'Twas a chastenin' he'd put up wi' twice afore, but he grat nane the +less. She was a bonnie bit body, was the thurd Mistress F! E'nboro could +'a' better spared the greetin' doctor than her, I'm thinkin'." + +"The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, according to His good will +and pleasure," I ventured piously, as Mrs. M'Collop beat the bolster and +laid it in place. + +"Ou ay," responded that good woman, as she spread the counterpane over +the pillows in the way I particularly dislike,--"ou ay, but whiles I +think it's a peety he couldna be guidit!" + + + +Chapter XI. Holyrood awakens. + + + +We were to make our bow to the Lord High Commissioner and the +Marchioness of Heatherdale in the evening, and we were in a state of +republican excitement at 22 Breadalbane Terrace. + +Francesca had surprised us by refusing to be presented at this +semi-royal Scottish court. "Not I," she said. "The Marchioness +represents the Queen; we may discover, when we arrive, that she has +raised the standards of admission, and requires us to 'back out' of +the throne-room. I don't propose to do that without London training. +Besides, I detest crowds, and I never go to my own President's +receptions; and I have a headache, anyway, and I don't feel like coping +with the Reverend Ronald to-night!" (Lady Baird was to take us under her +wing, and her nephew was to escort us, Sir Robert being in Inveraray). + +"Sally, my dear," I said, as Francesca left the room with a bottle of +smelling-salts somewhat ostentatiously in evidence, "methinks the damsel +doth protest too much. In other words, she devotes a good deal of time +and discussion to a gentleman whom she heartily dislikes. As she is +under your care, I will direct your attention to the following points:-- + +"Ronald Macdonald is a Scotsman; Francesca disapproves of international +alliances. + +"He is a Presbyterian; she is a Swedenborgian. + +"His father was a famous old-school doctor; Francesca is a +homoeopathist. + +"He is serious; Francesca is gay. + +"I think, under all the circumstances, their acquaintance will bear +watching. Two persons so utterly dissimilar, and, so far as superficial +observation goes, so entirely unsuited to each other, are quite likely +to drift into marriage unless diverted by watchful philanthropists." + +"Nonsense!" returned Salemina brusquely. "You think because you are +under the spell of the tender passion yourself that other people are in +constant danger. Francesca detests him." + +"Who told you so?" + +"She herself," triumphantly. + +"Salemina," I said pityingly, "I have always believed you a spinster +from choice; don't lead me to think that you have never had any +experience in these matters! The Reverend Ronald has also intimated to +me as plainly as he dared that he cannot bear the sight of Francesca. +What do I gather from this statement? The general conclusion that if it +be true, it is curious that he looks at her incessantly." + +"Francesca would never live in Scotland," remarked Salemina feebly. + +"Not unless she were asked, of course," I replied. + +"He would never ask her." + +"Not unless he thought he had a chance of an affirmative answer." + +"Her father would never allow it." + +"Her father allows what she permits him to allow. You know that +perfectly well." + +"What shall I do about it, then?" + +"Consult me." + +"What shall WE do about it?" + +"Let Nature have her own way." + +"I don't believe in Nature." + +"Don't be profane, Salemina, and don't be unromantic, which is worse; +but if you insist, trust in Providence." + +"I would rather trust Francesca's hard heart." + +"The hardest hearts melt if sufficient heat be applied. Did I take you +to Newhaven and read you Christie Johnstone on the beach for nought? +Don't you remember Charles Reade said that the Scotch are icebergs, with +volcanoes underneath; thaw the Scotch ice, which is very cold, and you +shall get to the Scotch fire, warmer than any sun of Italy or Spain. I +think Mr. Macdonald is a volcano." + +"I wish he were extinct," said Salemina petulantly; "and I wish you +wouldn't make me nervous." + +"If you had any faculty of premonition, you wouldn't have waited for me +to make you nervous." + +"Some people are singularly omniscient." + +"Others are singularly deficient--" And at this moment Susanna Crum came +in to announce Miss Jean Dalziel, who had come to see sights with us. + +It was our almost daily practice to walk through the Old Town, and we +were now familiar with every street and close in that densely-crowded +quarter. Our quest for the sites of ancient landmarks never grew +monotonous, and we were always reconstructing, in imagination, the +Cowgate, the Canongate, the Lawnmarket, and the High Street, until we +could see Auld Reekie as it was in bygone centuries. In those days of +continual war with England, people crowded their dwellings as near the +Castle as possible, so floor was piled upon floor, and flat upon flat, +families ensconcing themselves above other families, the tendency +being ever skyward. Those who dwelt on top had no desire to spend +their strength in carrying down the corkscrew stairs matter which would +descend by the force of gravity if pitched from the window or door; so +the wayfarer, especially after dusk, would be greeted with cries of +'Get oot o' the gait!' or 'Gardy loo!' which was in the French 'Gardez +l'eau,' and which would have been understood in any language, I fancy, +after a little experience. The streets then were filled with the debris +flung from a hundred upper windows, while certain ground-floor tenants, +such as butchers and candlemakers, contributed their full share to the +fragrant heaps. As for these too seldom used narrow turnpike stairs, +imagine the dames of fashion tilting their vast hoops and silken +show-petticoats up and down in them! + +That swine roamed at will in these Elysian fields is to be presumed, +since we have this amusing picture of three High Street belles and +beauties in the Traditions of Edinburgh:-- + +'So easy were the manners of the great, fabled to be so stiff and +decorous,' says the author, 'that Lady Maxwell's daughter Jane, who +afterward became the Duchess of Gordon, was seen riding a sow up the +High Street, while her sister Eglantine (afterwards Lady Wallace of +Craigie) thumped lustily behind with a stick.' + +No wonder, in view of all this, that King James VI., when about to bring +home his 'darrest spous,' Anne of Denmark, wrote to the Provost, 'For +God's sake see a' things are richt at our hame-coming; a king with a +new-married wife doesna come hame ilka day.' + +Had it not been for these royal home-comings and visits of distinguished +foreigners, now and again aided by something still more salutary, an +occasional outbreak of the plague, the easy-going authorities would +never have issued any 'cleaning edicts,' and the still easier-going +inhabitants would never have obeyed them. It was these dark, tortuous +wynds and closes, nevertheless, that made up the Court End of Old +Edinbro'; for some one writes in 1530, 'Via vaccarum in qua habitant +patricii et senatores urbis' (The nobility and chief senators of the +city dwell in the Cowgate). And as for the Canongate, this Saxon gaet +or way of the Holy rood canons, it still sheltered in 1753 'two dukes, +sixteen earls, two dowager countesses, seven lords, seven lords of +session, thirteen baronets, four commanders of the forces in Scotland, +and five eminent men,'--fine game indeed for Mally Lee! + + 'A' doun alang the Canongate + Were beaux o' ilk degree; + And mony ane turned round to look + At bonny Mally Lee. + And we're a' gaun east an' west, + We're a' gaun agee, + We're a' gaun east an' west + Courtin' Mally Lee!' + +Every corner bristles with memories. Here is the Stamp Office Close, +from which the lovely Susanna, Countess of Eglinton, was wont to issue +on assembly nights; she, six feet in height, with a brilliantly fair +complexion, and a 'face of the maist bewitching loveliness.' Her seven +daughters and stepdaughters were all conspicuously handsome, and it +was deemed a goodly sight to watch the long procession of eight gilded +sedan-chairs pass from the Stamp Office Close, bearing her and her +stately brood to the Assembly Room, amid a crowd that was 'hushed with +respect and admiration to behold their lofty and graceful figures step +from the chairs on the pavement.' + +Here itself is the site of those old assemblies, presided over at one +time by the famous Miss Nicky Murray, a directress of society affairs, +who seems to have been a feminine premonition of Count d'Orsay and our +own M'Allister. Rather dull they must have been, those old Scotch +balls, where Goldsmith saw the ladies and gentlemen in two dismal groups +divided by the length of the room. + + 'The Assembly Close received the fair-- + Order and elegance presided there-- + Each gay Right Honourable had her place, + To walk a minuet with becoming grace. + No racing to the dance with rival hurry, + Such was thy sway, O famed Miss Nicky Murray!' + +It was half-past nine in the evening when Salemina and I drove to +Holyrood, our humble cab-horse jogging faithfully behind Lady Baird's +brougham, and it was the new experience of seeing Auld Reekie by +lamplight that called up these gay visions of other days,--visions and +days so thoroughly our mental property that we could not help resenting +the fact that women were hanging washing from the Countess of Eglinton's +former windows, and popping their unkempt heads out of the Duchess of +Gordon's old doorway. + +The Reverend Ronald is so kind! He enters so fully into our spirit of +inquiry, and takes such pleasure in our enthusiasms! He even sprang +lightly out of Lady Baird's carriage and called to our 'lamiter' to halt +while he showed us the site of the Black Turnpike, from whose windows +Queen Mary saw the last of her kingdom's capital. + +"Here was the Black Turnpike, Miss Hamilton!" he cried; "and from +here Mary went to Loch Leven, where you Hamiltons and the Setons came +gallantly to her help. Don't you remember the 'far ride to the Solway +sands?'" + +I looked with interest, though I was in such a state of delicious +excitement that I could scarce keep my seat. + +"Only a few minutes more, Salemina," I sighed, "and we shall be in the +palace courtyard; then a probable half-hour in crowded dressing-rooms, +with another half-hour in line, and then, then we shall be making +our best republican bow in the Gallery of the Kings! How I wish Mr. +Beresford and Francesca were with us! What do you suppose was her +real reason for staying away? Some petty disagreement with our young +minister, I am sure. Do you think the dampness is taking the curl out +of our hair? Do you suppose our gowns will be torn to ribbons before the +Marchioness sees them? Do you believe we shall look as well as anybody? +Privately, I think we must look better than anybody; but I always think +that on my way to a party, never after I arrive." + +Mrs. M'Collop had asserted that I was 'bonnie eneuch for ony court,' and +I could not help wishing that 'mine ain dear Somebody' might see me +in my French frock embroidered with silver thistles, and my 'shower +bouquet' of Scottish bluebells tied loosely together. Salemina wore +pinky-purple velvet; a real heather colour it was, though the Lord High +Commissioner would probably never note the fact. + +When we had presented our cards of invitation at the palace doors, we +joined the throng and patiently made our way up the splendid staircases, +past powdered lackeys without number, and, divested of our wraps, joined +another throng on our way to the throne-room, Salemina and I pressing +those cards with our names 'legibly written on them' close to our +palpitating breasts. + +At last the moment came when, Lady Baird having preceded me, I handed +my bit of pasteboard to the usher; and hearing 'Miss Hamilton' called in +stentorian accents, I went forward in my turn, and executed a graceful +and elegant, but not too profound curtsy, carefully arranged to suit the +semi-royal, semi-ecclesiastical occasion. I had not divulged that fact +even to Salemina, but I had worn Mrs. M'Collop's carpet quite threadbare +in front of the long mirror, and had curtsied to myself so many times in +its crystal surface that I had developed a sort of fictitious reverence +for my reflected image. I had only begun my well-practised +obeisance when Her Grace the Marchioness, to my mingled surprise and +embarrassment, extended a gracious hand and murmured my name in a +particularly kind voice. She is fond of Lady Baird, and perhaps chose +this method of showing her friendship; or it may be that she noticed my +silver thistles and Salemina's heather-coloured velvet,--they certainly +deserved special recognition; or it may be that I was too beautiful to +pass over in silence,--in my state of exaltation I was quite equal to +the belief. + +The presentation over, we wandered through the spacious apartments, +leaning from the open windows to hear the music of the band playing in +the courtyard below, looking at the royal portraits, and chatting with +groups of friends who appeared and reappeared in the throng. Finally +Lady Baird sent for us to join her in a knot of personages more or less +distinguished, who had dined at the palace, and who were standing behind +the receiving party in a sort of sacred group. This indeed was a ground +of vantage, and one could have stood there for hours, watching all sorts +and conditions of men and women bowing before the Lord High Commissioner +and the Marchioness, who, with her Cleopatra-like beauty and scarlet +gown, looked like a gorgeous cardinal-flower. + +Salemina and I watched the curtsying narrowly, with the view at first of +improving our own obeisances for Buckingham Palace; but truth to say +we got no added light, and plainly most of the people had not worn +threadbare the carpets in front of their dressing-mirrors. + +Suddenly we heard a familiar name announced, 'Lord Colquhoun,' a +distinguished judge who had lately been raised to the peerage, and whom +we often met at dinners; then 'Miss Rowena Colquhoun'; and then in +the midst, we fancied, of an unusual stir at the entrance door--'Miss +Francesca Van Buren Monroe.' I involuntarily touched the Reverend +Ronald's shoulder in my astonishment, while Salemina lifted her +tortoise-shell lorgnette, and we gazed silently at our recreant charge. + +After presentation, each person has fifteen or twenty feet of awful +space to traverse in solitary and defenceless majesty; scanned meanwhile +by the maids of honour (who if they were truly honourable, would turn +their eyes another way), ladies-in-waiting, the sacred group in the +rear, and the Purse-Bearer himself. I had supposed that this functionary +would keep the purse in his upper bureau drawer at home, when he was not +paying bills, but it seems that when on processional duty he carries +a bag of red velvet quite a yard long over his arm, where it looks not +unlike a lady's opera-cloak. It would hold the sum-total of all moneys +disbursed, even if they were reduced to the standard of vulgar copper. + +Under this appalling fire of inspection, some of the victims waddle, +some hurry; some look up and down nervously, others glance over the +shoulder as if dreading to be apprehended; some turn red, others pale, +according to complexion and temperament; some swing their arms, other +trip on their gowns; some twitch the buttons of a glove, or tweak a +flower or a jewel. Francesca rose superior to all these weaknesses, +and I doubt if the Gallery of the Kings ever served as a background for +anything lovelier or more high-bred than that untitled slip of a girl +from 'the States.' Her trailing gown of pearl-white satin fell in +unbroken lustrous folds behind her. Her beautiful throat and shoulders +rose in statuesque whiteness from the mist of chiffon that encircled +them. Her dark hair showed a moonbeam parting that rested the eye, +wearied by the contemplation of waves and frizzes fresh from the +curling-tongs. Her mother's pearls hung in ropes from neck to waist, and +the one spot of colour about her was the single American Beauty rose +she carried. There is a patriotic florist in Paris who grows these +long-stemmed empresses of the rose-garden, and Mr. Beresford sends some +to me every week. Francesca had taken the flower without permission, and +I must say she was as worthy of it as it of her. + +She curtsied deeply, with no exaggerated ceremony, but with a sort +of innocent and childlike gravity, while the satin of her gown spread +itself like a great blossom over the floor. Her head was bowed until the +dark lashes swept her crimson cheeks; then she rose again from the heart +of the shimmering lily, with the one splendid rose glowing against all +her dazzling whiteness, and floated slowly across the dreaded space +to the door of exit as if she were preceded by invisible heralds and +followed by invisible train-bearers. + +"Who is she?" we heard whispered here and there. "Look at the rose!" +"Look at the pearls! Is she a princess or only an American?" + +I glanced at the Reverend Ronald. I imagined he looked pale; at any rate +he was biting his under lip nervously, and I believe he was in fancy +laying his serious, Scottish, allopathic, Presbyterian heart at +Francesca's gay, American, homoeopathic, Swedenborgian feet. + +"It is a pity Miss Monroe is such an ardent republican," he said, with +unconcealed bitterness; "otherwise she ought to be a duchess. I never +saw a head that better suited a coronet, nor, if you will pardon me, one +that contained more caprices." + +"It is true she flatly refused to accompany us here," I allowed, "but +perhaps she has some explanation more or less silly and serviceable; +meantime, I defy you to tell me she isn't a beauty, and I implore you +to say nothing about its being only skin-deep. Give me a beautiful +exterior, say I, and I will spend my life in making the hidden things of +mind and soul conform to it; but deliver me from all forlorn attempts to +make my beauty of character speak through a large mouth, breathe through +a fat nose, and look at my neighbour through crossed eyes!" + +Mr. Macdonald agreed with me, with some few ministerial reservations. He +always agrees with me, and why he is not tortured at the thought of +my being the promised bride of another, but continues to squander his +affections upon a quarrelsome and unappreciative girl is more than I can +comprehend. + +Francesca, escorted by Lord Colquhoun, appeared presently in our group, +but Salemina did not even attempt to scold her. One cannot scold an +imperious young beauty in white satin and pearls, particularly if she is +leaning nonchalantly on the arm of a peer of the realm. + +It seems that shortly after our departure (we had dined with Lady +Baird), Lord Colquhoun had sent a note to me, requiring an answer. +Francesca had opened it, and found that he offered an extra card of +invitation to one of us, and said that he and his sister would gladly +serve as escort to Holyrood, if desired. She had had an hour or two of +solitude by this time, and was well weary of it, while the last vestige +of headache disappeared under the temptation of appearing at court with +all the eclat of unexpectedness. She despatched a note of acceptance to +Lord Colquhoun, summoned Mrs. M'Collop, Susanna, and the maiden Boots to +her assistance, spread the trays of her Saratoga trunks about our three +bedrooms, grouped all our candles on her dressing-table, and borrowed +any trinket or bit of frippery which we chanced to have left behind. +Her own store of adornments is much greater than ours, but we possess +certain articles for which she has a childlike admiration: my white +satin slippers embroidered with seed pearls, Salemina's pearl-topped +comb, Salemina's Valenciennes handkerchief and diamond belt-clasp, my +pearl frog with ruby eyes. We identified our property on her impertinent +young person, and the list of her borrowings so amused the Reverend +Ronald that he forgot his injuries. + +"It is really an ordeal, that presentation, no matter how strong one's +sense of humour may be, nor how well rooted one's democracy," chattered +Francesca to a serried rank of officers who surrounded her to the +total routing of the ministry. "It is especially trying if one has come +unexpectedly and has no idea of what is to happen. I was agitated at the +supreme moment, because, at the entrance of the throne-room, I had +just shaken hands reverently with a splendid person who proved to be a +footman. Of course I took him for the Commander of the Queen's Guards, +or the Keeper of the Dungeon Keys, or the Most Noble Custodian of the +Royal Moats, Drawbridges, and Portcullises. When he put out his hand I +had no idea it was simply to waft me onward, and so naturally I shook +it,--it's a mercy that I didn't kiss it! Then I curtsied to the Royal +Usher, and overlooked the Lord High Commissioner altogether, having no +eyes for any one but the beautiful scarlet Marchioness. I only hope they +were too busy to notice my mistakes, otherwise I shall be banished +from Court at the very moment of my presentation.--Do you still +banish nowadays?" turning the battery of her eyes upon a particularly +insignificant officer who was far too dazed to answer. "And did you +see the child of ten who was next to me in line? She is Mrs. +Macstronachlacher; at least that was the name on the card she carried, +and she was thus announced. As they tell us the Purse-Bearer is most +rigorous in arranging these functions and issuing the invitations, I +presume she must be Mrs. Macstronachlacher; but if so, they marry very +young in Scotland, and her skirts should really have been longer!" + + + +Chapter XII. Farewell to Edinburgh. + + + +It is our last day in 'Scotia's darling seat,' our last day in +Breadalbane Terrace, our last day with Mrs. M'Collop; and though every +one says that we shall love the life in the country, we are loath to +leave Auld Reekie. + +Salemina and I have spent two days in search of an abiding-place, and +have visited eight well-recommended villages with that end in view; but +she disliked four of them, and I couldn't endure the other four, though +I considered some of those that fell under her disapproval as quite +delightful in every respect. + +We never take Francesca on these pilgrimages of disagreement, as three +conflicting opinions on the same subject would make insupportable what +is otherwise rather exhilarating. She starts from Edinburgh to-morrow +for a brief visit to the Highlands with the Dalziels, and will join us +when we have settled ourselves. + +Mr. Beresford leaves Paris as soon after our decision as he is +permitted, so Salemina and I have agreed to agree upon one ideal spot +within thirty-six hours of our quitting Edinburgh, knowing privately +that after a last battle-royal we shall enthusiastically support the +joint decision for the rest of our lives. + +We have been bidding good-bye to people and places and things, and +wishing the sun would not shine and thus make our task the harder. +We have looked our last on the old grey town from Calton Hill, of all +places the best, perhaps, for a view; since, as Stevenson says, from +Calton Hill you can see the Castle, which you lose from the Castle, and +Arthur's Seat, which you cannot see from Arthur's Seat. We have taken a +farewell walk to the Dean Bridge, to gaze wistfully eastward and marvel +for the hundredth time to find so beautiful a spot in the heart of +a city. The soft-flowing Water of Leith winding over pebbles between +grassy banks and groups of splendid trees, the roof of the little temple +to Hygeia rising picturesquely among green branches, the slopes of +emerald velvet leading up to the grey stone of the houses,--where, in +all the world of cities, can one find a view to equal it in peaceful +loveliness? Francesca's 'bridge-man,' who, by the way, proved to be a +distinguished young professor of medicine in the University, says +that the beautiful cities of the world should be ranked +thus,--Constantinople, Prague, Genoa, Edinburgh; but having seen only +one of these, and that the last, I refuse to credit any sliding scale of +comparison which leaves Edina at the foot. + +It was nearing tea-time, an hour when we never fail to have visitors, +and we were all in the drawing-room together. I was at the piano, +singing Jacobite melodies for Salemina's delectation. When I came to +the last verse of Lady Nairne's 'Hundred Pipers,' the spirited words had +taken my fancy captive, and I am sure I could not have sung with more +vigour and passion had my people been 'out with the Chevalier.' + + 'The Esk was swollen sae red an' sae deep, + But shouther to shouther the brave lads keep; + Twa thousand swam owre to fell English ground, + An' danced themselves dry to the pibroch's sound. + Dumfounder'd the English saw, they saw, + Dumfounder'd they heard the blaw, the blaw, + Dumfounder'd they a' ran awa', awa', + Frae the hundred pipers an' a', an' a'!' + +By the time I came to 'Dumfounder'd the English saw,' Francesca left +her book and joined in the next four lines, and when we broke into the +chorus Salemina rushed to the piano, and although she cannot sing, she +lifted her voice both high and loud in the refrain, beating time the +while with a dirk paper-knife. + + 'Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a', + Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a', + We'll up an' gie them a blaw, a blaw, + Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a'!' + +Susanna ushered in Mr. Macdonald and Dr. Moncrieffe as the last 'blaw' +faded into silence, and Jean Dalziel came upstairs to say that they +could seldom get a quiet moment for family prayers, because we +were always at the piano, hurling incendiary sentiments into the +air,--sentiments set to such stirring melodies that no one could resist +them. + +"We are very sorry, Miss Dalziel," I said penitently. "We reserve an +hour in the morning and another at bedtime for your uncle's prayers, +but we had no idea you had them at afternoon tea, even in Scotland. I +believe that you are chaffing, and came up only to swell the chorus. +Come, let us all sing together from 'Dumfounder'd the English saw.'" + +Mr. Macdonald and Dr. Moncrieffe gave such splendid body to the music, +and Jean such warlike energy, that Salemina waved her paper-knife in a +manner more than ever sanguinary, and Susanna, hesitating outside the +door for sheer delight, had to be coaxed in with the tea-things. On the +heels of the tea-things came the Dominie, another dear old friend of six +weeks' standing; and while the doctor sang 'Jock o' Hazeldean' with +such irresistible charm that we all longed to elope with somebody on the +instant, Salemina dispensed buttered toast, marmalade sandwiches, +and the fragrant cup. By this time we were thoroughly cosy, and Mr. +Macdonald made himself and us very much at home by stirring the fire; +whereupon Francesca embarrassed him by begging him not to touch it +unless he could do it properly, which, she added, seemed quite unlikely, +from the way in which he handled the poker. + +"What will Edinburgh do without you?" he asked, turning towards us with +flattering sadness in his tone. "Who will hear our Scotch stories, never +suspecting their hoary old age? Who will ask us questions to which we +somehow always know the answers? Who will make us study and reverence +anew our own landmarks? Who will keep warm our national and local pride +by judicious enthusiasm?" + +"I think the national and local pride may be counted on to exist without +any artificial stimulants," dryly observed Francesca, whose spirit is +not in the least quenched by approaching departure. + +"Perhaps," answered the Reverend Ronald; "but at any rate, you, +Miss Monroe, will always be able to reflect that you have never been +responsible even for its momentary inflation!" + +"Isn't it strange that she cannot get on better with that charming +fellow?" murmured Salemina, as she passed me the sugar for my second +cup. + +"If your present symptoms of blindness continue, Salemina," I said, +searching for a small lump so as to gain time, "I shall write you a +plaintive ballad, buy you a dog, and stand you on a street corner! If +you had ever permitted yourself to 'get on' with any man as Francesca is +getting on with Mr. Macdonald, you would now be Mrs.--Somebody." + +"Do you know, doctor," asked the Dominie, "that Miss Hamilton shed +real tears at Holyrood the other night, when the band played 'Bonnie +Charlie's noo awa'?'" + +"They were real," I confessed, "in the sense that they certainly were +not crocodile tears; but I am somewhat at a loss to explain them from +a sensible, American standpoint. Of course my Jacobitism is purely +impersonal, though scarcely more so than yours, at this late day; at +least it is merely a poetic sentiment, for which Caroline, Baroness +Nairne, is mainly responsible. My romantic tears came from a vision of +the Bonnie Prince as he entered Holyrood, dressed in his short tartan +coat, his scarlet breeches and military boots, the star of St. Andrew on +his breast, a blue ribbon over his shoulder, and the famous blue velvet +bonnet and white cockade. He must have looked so brave and handsome and +hopeful at that moment, and the moment was so sadly brief, that when the +band played the plaintive air I kept hearing the words-- + + 'Mony a heart will break in twa, + Should he no come back again.' + +He did come back again to me that evening, and held a phantom levee +behind the Marchioness of Heatherdale's shoulder. His 'ghaist' looked +bonnie and rosy and confident, yet all the time the band was playing the +requiem for his lost cause and buried hopes." + +I looked towards the fire to hide the moisture that crept again into my +eyes, and my glance fell upon Francesca sitting dreamily on a hassock in +front of the cheerful blaze, her chin in the hollow of her palm, and the +Reverend Ronald standing on the hearth-rug gazing at her, the poker in +his hand, and his heart, I regret to say, in such an exposed position on +his sleeve that even Salemina could have seen it had she turned her eyes +that way. + +Jean Dalziel broke the momentary silence: "I am sure I never hear the +last two lines-- + + 'Better lo'ed ye canna be, + Will ye no' come back again?' + +without a lump in my throat," and she hummed the lovely melody. "It +is all as you say, purely impersonal and poetic. My mother is an +Englishwoman, but she sings 'Dumfounder'd the English saw, they saw' +with the greatest fire and fury." + + + +Chapter XIII. The spell of Scotland. + + + +"I think I was never so completely under the spell of a country as I +am of Scotland." I made this acknowledgment freely, but I knew that it +would provoke comment from my compatriots. + +"Oh yes, my dear, you have been just as spellbound before, only you +don't remember it," replied Salemina promptly. "I have never seen a +person more perilously appreciative or receptive than you." + +"'Perilously' is just the word," chimed in Francesca delightedly; "when +you care for a place you grow porous, as it were, until after a time you +are precisely like blotting-paper. Now, there was Italy, for example. +After eight weeks in Venice, you were completely Venetian, from your fan +to the ridiculous little crepe shawl you wore because an Italian prince +had told you that centuries were usually needed to teach a woman how +to wear a shawl, but that you had been born with the art, and +the shoulders! Anything but a watery street was repulsive to you. +Cobblestones? 'Ordinario, duro, brutto! A gondola? Ah, bellissima! Let +me float for ever thus!' You bathed your spirit in sunshine and +colour; I can hear you murmur now, 'O Venezia benedetta! non ti voglio +lasciar!'" + +"It was just the same when she spent a month in France with the Baroness +de Hautenoblesse," continued Salemina. "When she returned to America, it +is no flattery to say that in dress, attitude, inflection, manner, she +was a thorough Parisienne. There was an elegant superficiality and a +superficial elegance about her that I can never forget, nor yet her +extraordinary volubility in a foreign language,--the fluency with which +she expressed her inmost soul on all topics without the aid of a single +irregular verb, for these she was never able to acquire; oh, it was +wonderful, but there was no affectation about it; she had simply been +a kind of blotting-paper, as Miss Monroe says, and France had written +itself all over her." + +"I don't wish to interfere with anybody's diagnosis," I interposed at +the first possible moment, "but perhaps after you've both finished your +psychologic investigation the subject may be allowed to explain herself +from the inside, so to speak. I won't deny the spell of Italy, but I +think the spell that Scotland casts over one is quite a different thing, +more spiritual, more difficult to break. Italy's charm has something +physical in it; it is born of blue sky, sunlit waves, soft atmosphere, +orange sails, and yellow moons, and appeals more to the senses. In +Scotland the climate certainly has nought to do with it, but the +imagination is somehow made captive. I am not enthralled by the past of +Italy or France, for instance." + +"Of course you are not at the present moment," said Francesca, "because +you are enthralled by the past of Scotland, and even you cannot be the +slave of two pasts at the same time." + +"I never was particularly enthralled by Italy's past," I argued with +exemplary patience, "but the romance of Scotland has a flavour all its +own. I do not quite know the secret of it." + +"It's the kilts and the pipes," said Francesca. + +"No, the history." (This from Salemina.) + +"Or Sir Walter and the literature," suggested Mr. Macdonald. + + "Or the songs and ballads," ventured Jean Dalziel. + +"There!" I exclaimed triumphantly, "you see for yourselves you have +named avenue after avenue along which one's mind is led in charmed +subjection. Where can you find battles that kindle your fancy like +Falkirk and Flodden and Culloden and Bannockburn? Where a sovereign +that attracts, baffles, repels, allures, like Mary Queen of Scots,--and +where, tell me where, is there a Pretender like Bonnie Prince Charlie? +Think of the spirit in those old Scottish matrons who could sing-- + + 'I'll sell my rock, I'll sell my reel, + My rippling-kame and spinning-wheel, + To buy my lad a tartan plaid, + A braidsword, durk and white cockade.'" + +"Yes," chimed in Salemina when I had finished quoting, "or that other +verse that goes-- + + 'I ance had sons, I now hae nane, + I bare them toiling sairlie; + But I would bear them a' again + To lose them a' for Charlie!' + +Isn't the enthusiasm almost beyond belief at this distance of time?" she +went on; "and isn't it a curious fact, as Mr. Macdonald told me a moment +ago, that though the whole country was vocal with songs for the lost +cause and the fallen race, not one in favour of the victors ever became +popular?" + +"Sympathy for the under dog, as Miss Monroe's countrywomen would say +picturesquely," remarked Mr. Macdonald. + +"I don't see why all the vulgarisms in the dictionary should be foisted +on the American girl," retorted Francesca loftily, "unless, indeed, it +is a determined attempt to find spots upon the sun for fear we shall +worship it!" + +"Quite so, quite so!" returned the Reverend Ronald, who has had reason +to know that this phrase reduces Miss Monroe to voiceless rage. + +"The Stuart charm and personal magnetism must have been a powerful +factor in all that movement," said Salemina, plunging hastily back into +the topic to avert any further recrimination. "I suppose we feel it even +now, and if I had been alive in 1745 I should probably have made myself +ridiculous. 'Old maiden ladies,' I read this morning, 'were the last +leal Jacobites in Edinburgh; spinsterhood in its loneliness remained +ever true to Prince Charlie and the vanished dreams of youth.'" + +"Yes," continued the Dominie, "the story is told of the last of those +Jacobite ladies who never failed to close her Prayer-Book and stand +erect in silent protest when the prayer for 'King George III. and the +reigning family' was read by the congregation." + +"Do you remember the prayer of the Reverend Neil M'Vicar in St. +Cuthbert's?" asked Mr. Macdonald. "It was in 1745, after the victory at +Prestonpans, when a message was sent to the Edinburgh ministers, in the +name of 'Charles, Prince Regent' desiring them to open their churches +next day as usual. M'Vicar preached to a large congregation, many of +whom were armed Highlanders, and prayed for George II., and also for +Charles Edward, in the following fashion: 'Bless the king! Thou knowest +what king I mean. May the crown sit long upon his head! As for that +young man who has come among us to seek an earthly crown, we beseech +Thee to take him to Thyself, and give him a crown of glory!'" + +"Ah, what a pity the Bonnie Prince had not died after his meteor victory +at Falkirk!" exclaimed Jean Dalziel, when we had finished laughing at +Mr. Macdonald's story. + +"Or at Culloden, 'where, quenched in blood on the Muir of Drummossie, +the star of the Stuarts sank forever,'" quoted the Dominie. "There is +where his better self died; would that the young Chevalier had died with +it! By the way, doctor, we must not sit here eating goodies and sipping +tea until the dinner-hour, for these ladies have doubtless much to do +for their flitting" (a pretty Scots word for 'moving'). + +"We are quite ready for our flitting so far as packing is concerned," +Salemina assured him. "Would that we were as ready in spirit! Miss +Hamilton has even written her farewell poem, which I am sure she will +read for the asking." + +"She will read it without that formality," murmured Francesca. "She has +lived and toiled only for this moment, and the poem is in her pocket." + +"Delightful!" said the doctor flatteringly. "Has she favoured you +already? Have you heard it, Miss Monroe?" + +"Have we heard it!" ejaculated that young person. "We have heard nothing +else all the morning! What you will take for local colour is nothing +but our mental life-blood, which she has mercilessly drawn to stain her +verses. We each tried to write a Scottish poem, and as Miss Hamilton's +was better, or perhaps I might say less bad, than ours, we encouraged +her to develop and finish it. I wanted to do an imitation of Lindsay's + + 'Adieu, Edinburgh! thou heich triumphant town, + Within whose bounds richt blithefull have I been! + +but it proved too difficult. Miss Hamilton's general idea was that we +should write some verses in good plain English. Then we were to take +out all the final g's, and indeed the final letters from all the words +wherever it was possible, so that full, awful, call, ball, hall, and +away should be fu', awfu', ca', ba', ha', an' awa'. This alone gives +great charm and character to a poem; but we were also to change all +words ending in ow into aw. This doesn't injure the verse, you see, as +blaw and snaw rhyme just as well as blow and snow, beside bringing tears +to the common eye with their poetic associations. Similarly, if we had +daughter and slaughter, we were to write them dochter and slauchter, +substituting in all cases doon, froon, goon, and toon, for down, frown +gown, and town. Then we made a list of Scottish idols,--pet words, +national institutions, stock phrases, beloved objects,--convinced if +we could weave them in we should attain 'atmosphere.' Here is the first +list; it lengthened speedily: thistle, tartan, haar, haggis, kirk, +claymore, parritch, broom, whin, sporran, whaup, plaid, scone, collops, +whisky, mutch, cairngorm, oatmeal, brae, kilt, brose, heather. Salemina +and I were too devoted to common-sense to succeed in this weaving +process, so Penelope triumphed and won the first prize, both for that +and also because she brought in a saying given us by Miss Dalziel, about +the social classification of all Scotland into 'the gentlemen of the +North, men of the South, people of the West, fowk o' Fife, and the +Paisley bodies.' We think that her success came chiefly from her writing +the verses with a Scotch plaid lead-pencil. What effect the absorption +of so much red, blue, and green paint will have I cannot fancy, but she +ate off--and up--all the tartan glaze before finishing the poem; it had +a wonderfully stimulating effect, but the end is not yet!" + +Of course there was a chorus of laughter when the young wretch exhibited +my battered pencil, bought in Princes Street yesterday, its gay Gordon +tints sadly disfigured by the destroying tooth, not of Time, but of a +bard in the throes of composition. + +"We bestowed a consolation prize on Salemina," continued Francesca, +"because she succeeded in getting hoots, losh, havers, and blethers into +one line, but naturally she could not maintain such an ideal standard. +Read your verses, Pen, though there is little hope that our friends will +enjoy them as much as you do. Whenever Miss Hamilton writes anything of +this kind, she emulates her distinguished ancestor Sir William Hamilton, +who always fell off his own chair in fits of laughter when he was +composing verses." + +With this inspiring introduction I read my lines as follows:-- + + AN AMERICAN GIRL'S FAREWELL TO EDINBURGH + + The muse being somewhat under the influence of the Scottish ballad + + I canna thole my ain toun, + Sin' I hae dwelt i' this; + To bide in Edinboro' reek + Wad be the tap o' bliss. + Yon bonnie plaid aboot me hap, + The skirlin' pipes gae bring, + With thistles fair tie up my hair, + While I of Scotia sing. + + The collops an' the cairngorms, + The haggis an' the whin, + The 'Staiblished, Free, an' U.P. kirks, + The hairt convinced o' sin,-- + The parritch an' the heather-bell, + The snawdrap on the shaw, + The bit lam's bleatin' on the braes,-- + How can I leave them a'? + + How can I leave the marmalade + An' bonnets o' Dundee? + The haar, the haddies, an' the brose, + The East win' blawin' free? + How can I lay my sporran by, + An' sit me doun at hame, + Wi'oot a Hieland philabeg + Or hyphenated name? + + I lo'e the gentry o' the North, + The Southern men I lo'e, + The canty people o' the West, + The Paisley bodies too. + The pawky folk o' Fife are dear,-- + Sae dear are ane an' a', + That e'en to think that we maun pairt + Maist braks my hairt in twa. + + So fetch me tartans, heather, scones, + An' dye my tresses red; + I'd deck me like th' unconquer'd Scots, + Wha hae wi' Wallace bled. + Then bind my claymore to my side, + My kilt an' mutch gae bring; + While Scottish lays soun' i' my lugs + M'Kinley's no my king,-- + + For Charlie, bonnie Stuart Prince, + Has turned me Jacobite; + I'd wear displayed the white cockade. + An' (whiles) for him I'll fight! + An' (whiles) I'd fight for a' that's Scotch, + Save whusky an' oatmeal, + For wi' their ballads i' my bluid, + Nae Scot could be mair leal! + +I fancied that I had pitched my verses in so high a key that no one +could mistake their burlesque intention. What was my confusion, however, +to have one of the company remark when I finished, 'Extremely pretty; +but a mutch, you know, is an article of WOMAN'S apparel, and would never +be worn with a kilt!' + +Mr. Macdonald flung himself gallantly into the breach. He is such a dear +fellow! So quick, so discriminating, so warm-hearted! + +"Don't pick flaws in Miss Hamilton's finest line! That picture of a fair +American, clad in a kilt and mutch, decked in heather and scones, and +brandishing a claymore, will live for ever in my memory. Don't clip the +wings of her imagination! You will be telling her soon that one doesn't +tie one's hair with thistles, nor couple collops with cairngorms." + +Somebody sent Francesca a great bunch of yellow broom, late that +afternoon. There was no name in the box, she said, but at night she wore +the odorous tips in the bosom of her black dinner-gown, and standing +erect in her dark hair like golden aigrettes. + +When she came into my room to say good night, she laid the pretty frock +in one of my trunks, which was to be filled with garments of fashionable +society and left behind in Edinburgh. The next moment I chanced to look +on the floor, and discovered a little card, a bent card with two lines +written on it:-- + + 'Better lo'ed ye canna be, + Will ye no' come back again?' + +We have received many invitations in that handwriting. I know it well, +and so does Francesca, though it is blurred; and the reason for this, +according to my way of thinking, is that it has been lying next +the moist stems of flowers, and unless I do her wrong, very near to +somebody's warm heart as well. + +I will not betray her to Salemina, even to gain a victory over that +blind and deaf but much beloved woman. How could I, with my heart +beating high at the thought of seeing my ain dear laddie before many +days? + + Oh, love, love, lassie, + Love is like a dizziness: + It winna lat a puir body + Gang aboot his business.' + + + +Chapter XIV. The wee theekit hoosie in the loaning. + + + + 'Now she's cast aff her bonny shoon + Made o' gilded leather, + And she's put on her Hieland brogues + To skip amang the heather. + And she's cast aff her bonny goon + Made o' the silk and satin, + And she's put on a tartan plaid + To row amang the braken.' + +Lizzie Baillie. + + + +We are in the East Neuk o' Fife; we are in Pettybaw; we are neither +boarders nor lodgers; we are residents, inhabitants, householders, and +we live (live, mind you) in a wee theekit hoosie in the old loaning. +Words fail to tell you how absolutely Scotch we are and how blissfully +happy. It is a happiness, I assure you, achieved through great +tribulation. Salemina and I travelled many miles in railway trains, and +many in various other sorts of wheeled vehicles, while the ideal +ever beckoned us onward. I was determined to find a romantic lodging, +Salemina a comfortable one, and this special combination of virtues +is next to impossible, as every one knows. Linghurst was too much of a +town; Bonnie Craig had no respectable inn; Winnybrae was struggling to +be a watering-place; Broomlea had no golf-course within ten miles, and +we intended to go back to our native land and win silver goblets in +mixed foursomes; the 'new toun o' Fairlock' (which looked centuries old) +was delightful, but we could not find apartments there; Pinkie Leith was +nice, but they were tearing up the 'fore street' and laying drain-pipes +in it. Strathdee had been highly recommended, but it rained when we were +in Strathdee, and nobody can deliberately settle in a place where it +rains during the process of deliberation. No train left this moist and +dripping hamlet for three hours, so we took a covered trap and drove +onward in melancholy mood. Suddenly the clouds lifted and the rain +ceased; the driver thought we should be having settled weather now, and +put back the top of the carriage, saying meanwhile that it was a verra +dry simmer this year, and that the crops sairly needed shoo'rs. + +"Of course, if there is any district in Scotland where for any reason +droughts are possible, that is where we wish to settle," I whispered to +Salemina; "though, so far as I can see, the Strathdee crops are up to +their knees in mud. Here is another wee village. What is this place, +driver?" + +"Pettybaw, mam; a fine toun!" + +"Will there be apartments to let there?" + +"I cudna say, mam." + +"Susanna Crum's father! How curious that he should live here!" I +murmured; and at this moment the sun came out, and shone full, or at +least almost full, on our future home. + +"Pettybaw! Petit bois, I suppose," said Salemina; "and there, to be +sure, it is,--the 'little wood' yonder." + +We drove to the Pettybaw Inn and Posting Establishment, and, alighting, +dismissed the driver. We had still three good hours of daylight, +although it was five o'clock, and we refreshed ourselves with a +delicious cup of tea before looking for lodgings. We consulted the +greengrocer, the baker, and the flesher, about furnished apartments, and +started on our quest, not regarding the little posting establishment as +a possibility. Apartments we found to be very scarce, and in one or two +places that were quite suitable the landlady refused to do any cooking. +We wandered from house to house, the sun shining brighter and brighter, +and Pettybaw looking lovelier and lovelier; and as we were refused +shelter again and again, we grew more and more enamoured, as is the +manner of human kind. The blue sea sparkled, and Pettybaw Sands gleamed +white a mile or two in the distance, the pretty stone church raised its +curved spire from the green trees, the manse next door was hidden in +vines, the sheep lay close to the grey stone walls and the young lambs +nestled beside them, while the song of the burn, tinkling merrily down +the glade on the edge of which we stood, and the cawing of the rooks in +the little wood, were the only sounds to be heard. + +Salemina, under the influence of this sylvan solitude, nobly declared +that she could and would do without a set bath-tub, and proposed +building a cabin and living near to nature's heart. + +"I think, on the whole, we should be more comfortable living near to +the innkeeper's heart," I answered. "Let us go back there and pass the +night, trying thus the bed and breakfast, with a view to seeing what +they are like--although they did say in Edinburgh that nobody thinks of +living in these wayside hostelries." + +Back we went, accordingly, and after ordering dinner came out and +strolled idly up the main street. A small sign in the draper's window, +heretofore overlooked, caught our eye. 'House and Garden To Let Inquire +Within.' Inquiring within with all possible speed, we found the draper +selling winceys, the draper's assistant tidying the ribbon-box, the +draper's wife sewing in one corner, and the draper's baby playing on the +clean floor. We were impressed favourably, and entered into negotiations +without delay. + +"The house will be in the loaning; do you mind, ma'am?" asked the +draper. (We have long since discovered that this use of the verb is a +bequest from the Gaelic, in which there is no present tense. Man never +is, but always to be blessed, in that language, which in this particular +is not unlike old-fashioned Calvinism.) + +We went out of the back door and down the green loaning, until we came +to the wee stone cottage in which the draper himself lives most of the +year, retiring for the warmer months to the back of his shop, and eking +out a comfortable income by renting his hearth-stone to the summer +visitor. + +The thatched roof on the wing that formed the kitchen attracted my +artist's eye, and we went in to examine the interior, which we found +surprisingly attractive. There was a tiny sitting-room, with a fireplace +and a microscopic piano; a dining-room adorned with portraits of +relatives who looked nervous when they met my eye, for they knew that +they would be turned face to the wall on the morrow; four bedrooms, a +kitchen, and a back garden so filled with vegetables and flowers that we +exclaimed with astonishment and admiration. + +"But we cannot keep house in Scotland," objected Salemina. "Think of the +care! And what about the servants?" + +"Why not eat at the inn?" I suggested. "Think of living in a real +loaning, Salemina! Look at the stone floor in the kitchen, and the +adorable stuffy box-bed in the wall! Look at the bust of Sir Walter +in the hall, and the chromo of Melrose Abbey by moonlight! Look at the +lintel over the front door, with a ship, moon, stars, and 1602 carved in +the stone! What is food to all this?" + +Salemina agreed that it was hardly worth considering; and in truth so +many landladies had refused to receive her as a tenant that day that her +spirits were rather low, and she was uncommonly flexible. + +"It is the lintel and the back garden that rents the hoose," remarked +the draper complacently in broad Scotch that I cannot reproduce. He is a +house-agent as well as a draper, and went on to tell us that when he had +a cottage he could rent in no other way he planted plenty of creepers +in front of it. "The baker's hoose is no sae bonnie," he said, "and the +linen and cutlery verra scanty, but there is a yellow laburnum growin' +by the door: the leddies see that, and forget to ask aboot the linen. It +depends a good bit on the weather, too; it is easy to let a hoose when +the sun shines upon it." + +"We hardly dare undertake regular housekeeping," I said; "do your +tenants ever take meals at the inn?" + +"I cudna say, mam." (Dear, dear, the Crums are a large family!) + +"If we did that, we should still need a servant to keep the house tidy," +said Salemina, as we walked away. "Perhaps housemaids are to be had, +though not nearer than Edinburgh, I fancy." + +This gave me an idea, and I slipped over to the post-office while +Salemina was preparing for dinner, and despatched a telegram to Mrs. +M'Collop at Breadalbane Terrace, asking her if she could send a reliable +general servant to us, capable of cooking simple breakfasts and caring +for a house. + +We had scarcely finished our Scotch broth, fried haddies, mutton-chops, +and rhubarb tart when I received an answer from Mrs. M'Collop to the +effect that her sister's husband's niece, Jane Grieve, could join us +on the morrow if we desired. The relationship was an interesting fact, +though we scarcely thought the information worth the additional pennies +we paid for it in the telegram; however, Mrs. M'Collop's comfortable +assurance, together with the quality of the rhubarb tart and +mutton-chops, brought us to a decision. Before going to sleep we rented +the draper's house, named it Bide-a-Wee Cottage, engaged daily +luncheons and dinners for three persons at the Pettybaw Inn and Posting +Establishment, telegraphed to Edinburgh for Jane Grieve, to Callander +for Francesca, and despatched a letter to Paris for Mr. Beresford, +telling him we had taken a 'wee theekit hoosie,' and that the 'yett was +ajee' whenever he chose to come. + +"Possibly it would have been wiser not send for them until we were +settled," I said reflectively. "Jane Grieve may not prove a suitable +person." + +"The name somehow sounds too young and inexperienced," observed +Salemina, "and what association have I with the phrase 'sister's +husband's niece'?" + +"You have heard me quote Lewis Carroll's verse, perhaps:-- + + 'He thought he saw a buffalo + Upon the chimney-piece; + He looked again and found it was + His sister's husband's niece: + "Unless you leave the house," he said, + "I'll send for the police!"' + +The only thing that troubles me," I went on, "is the question of Willie +Beresford's place of residence. He expects to be somewhere within easy +walking or cycling distance,--four or five miles at most." + +"He won't be desolate even if he doesn't have a thatched roof, a +pansy garden, and a blossoming shrub," said Salemina sleepily, for our +business arrangements and discussions had lasted well into the evening. +"What he will want is a lodging where he can have frequent sight and +speech of you. How I dread him! How I resent his sharing of you with us! +I don't know why I use the word 'sharing,' forsooth! There is nothing +half so fair and just in his majesty's greedy mind. Well, it's the way +of the world; only it is odd, with the universe of women to choose from, +that he must needs take you. Strathdee seems the most desirable place +for him, if he has a macintosh and rubber boots. Inchcaldy is another +town near here that we didn't see at all--that might do; the draper's +wife says that we can send fine linen to the laundry there." + +"Inchcaldy? Oh yes, I think we heard of it in Edinburgh--at least I have +some association with the name: it has a fine golf-course, I believe, +and very likely we ought to have looked at it, although for my part I +have no regrets. Nothing can equal Pettybaw; and I am so pleased to be a +Scottish householder! Aren't we just like Bessie Bell and Mary Gray? + + 'They were twa bonnie lassies; + They biggit a bower on yon burnbrae, + An' theekit it ower wi' rashes.' + +Think of our stone-floored kitchen, Salemina! Think of the real box-bed +in the wall for little Jane Grieve! She will have red-gold hair, blue +eyes, and a pink cotton gown. Think of our own cat! Think how Francesca +will admire the 1602 lintel! Think of our back garden, with our own +'neeps' and vegetable marrows growing in it! Think how they will envy +us at home when they learn that we have settled down into Scottish +yeowomen! + + 'It's oh, for a patch of land! + It's oh, for a patch of land! + Of all the blessings tongue can name, + There's nane like a patch of land!' + +Think of Willie coming to step on the floor and look at the bed and +stroke the cat and covet the lintel and walk in the garden and weed the +turnips and pluck the marrows that grow by our ain wee theekit hoosie!" + +"Penelope, you appear slightly intoxicated! Do close the window and come +to bed." + +"I am intoxicated with the caller air of Pettybaw," I rejoined, leaning +on the window-sill and looking at the stars, while I thought: "Edinburgh +was beautiful; it is the most beautiful grey city in the world; it +lacked one thing only to make it perfect, and Pettybaw will have that +before many moons:-- + + 'Oh, Willie's rare an' Willie's fair + An' Willie's wondrous bonny; + An' Willie's hecht to marry me + Gin e'er he marries ony. + + 'O gentle wind that bloweth south, + From where my love repaireth, + Convey a word from his dear mouth, + An' tell me how he fareth.'" + + + +Chapter XV. Jane Grieve and her grievances. + + + + 'Gae tak' awa' the china plates, + Gae tak' them far frae me; + And bring to me a wooden dish, + It's that I'm best used wi'. + And tak' awa' thae siller spoons, + The like I ne'er did see, + And bring to me the horn cutties, + They're good eneugh for me.' + +Earl Richard's Wedding. + + + +The next day was one of the most cheerful and one of the most fatiguing +that I ever spent. Salemina and I moved every article of furniture +in our wee theekit hoosie from the place where it originally stood to +another and a better place: arguing, of course, over the precise spot +it should occupy, which was generally upstairs if the thing were already +down, or downstairs if it were already up. We hid all the more hideous +ornaments of the draper's wife, and folded away her most objectionable +tidies and table-covers, replacing them with our own pretty draperies. +There were only two pictures in the sitting-room, and as an artist I +would not have parted with them for worlds. The first was The Life of +a Fireman, which could only remind one of the explosion of a mammoth +tomato, and the other was The Spirit of Poetry calling Burns from the +Plough. Burns wore white knee-breeches, military boots, a splendid +waistcoat with lace ruffles, and carried a cocked hat. To have been +so dressed he must have known the Spirit was intending to come. The +plough-horse was a magnificent Arabian, whose tail swept the freshly +furrowed earth, while the Spirit of Poetry was issuing from a +practicable wigwam on the left, and was a lady of such ample dimensions +that no poet would have dared say 'no' when she called him. + +The dining-room was blighted by framed photographs of the draper's +relations and the draper's wife's relations; all uniformly ugly. It +seems strange that married couples having the least beauty to bequeath +to their offspring should persist in having the largest families. These +ladies and gentlemen were too numerous to remove, so we obscured them +with trailing branches; reflecting that we only breakfasted in the room, +and the morning meal is easily digested when one lives in the open air. +We arranged flowers everywhere, and bought potted plants at a little +nursery hard by. We apportioned the bedrooms, giving Francesca the +hardest bed,--as she is the youngest, and wasn't here to choose,--me the +next hardest, and Salemina the best; Francesca the largest looking-glass +and wardrobe, me the best view, and Salemina the largest bath. We bought +housekeeping stores, distributing our patronage equally between the two +grocers; we purchased aprons and dust-cloths from the rival drapers, +engaged bread and rolls from the baker, milk and cream from the plumber +(who keeps three cows), interviewed the flesher about chops; in fact, no +young couple facing love in a cottage ever had a busier or happier time +than we; and at sundown, when Francesca arrived, we were in the pink of +order, standing under our own lintel, ready to welcome her to Pettybaw. +As to being strangers in a strange land, we had a bowing acquaintance +with everybody on the main street of the tiny village, and were on terms +of considerable intimacy with half a dozen families, including dogs and +babies. + +Francesca was delighted with everything, from the station (Pettybaw +Sands, two miles away) to Jane Grieve's name, which she thought +as perfect, in its way, as Susanna Crum's. She had purchased a +'tirling-pin,' that old-time precursor of knockers and bells, at an +antique shop in Oban, and we fastened it on the front door at once, +taking turns at risping it until our own nerves were shattered, and +the draper's wife ran down the loaning to see if we were in need of +anything. The twisted bar of iron stands out from the door and the ring +is drawn up and down over a series of nicks, making a rasping noise. The +lovers and ghaists in the old ballads always 'tirled at the pin,' you +remember; that is, touched it gently. + +Francesca brought us letters from Edinburgh, and what was my joy, +in opening Willie's, to learn that he begged us to find a place in +Fifeshire, and as near St. Rules or Strathdee as convenient; for in that +case he could accept an invitation he had just received to visit his +friend Robin Anstruther, at Rowardennan Castle. + +"It is not the visit at the castle I wish so much, you may be sure," he +wrote, "as the fact that Lady Ardmore will make everything pleasant for +you. You will like my friend Robin Anstruther, who is Lady Ardmore's +youngest brother, and who is going to her to be nursed and coddled after +a baddish accident in the hunting-field. He is very sweet-tempered, and +will get on well with Francesca--" + +"I don't see the connection," rudely interrupted that spirited young +person. + +"I suppose she has more room on her list in the country than she had in +Edinburgh; but if my remembrance serves me, she always enrolls a goodly +number of victims, whether she has any immediate use for them or not." + +"Mr. Beresford's manners have not been improved by his residence in +Paris," observed Francesca, with resentment in her tone and delight in +her eye. + +"Mr. Beresford's manners are always perfect," said Salemina loyally, +"and I have no doubt that this visit to Lady Ardmore will be extremely +pleasant for him, though very embarrassing to us. If we are thrown into +forced intimacy with a castle" (Salemina spoke of it as if it had fangs +and a lashing tail), "what shall we do in this draper's hut?" + +"Salemina!" I expostulated, "bears will devour you as they did the +ungrateful child in the fairy-tale. I wonder at your daring to use the +word 'hut' in connection with our wee theekit hoosie!" + +"They will never understand that we are doing all this for the novelty +of it," she objected. "The Scottish nobility and gentry probably never +think of renting a house for a joke. Imagine Lord and Lady Ardmore, the +young Ardmores, Robin Anstruther, and Willie Beresford calling upon us +in this sitting-room! We ourselves would have to sit in the hall and +talk in through the doorway." + +"All will be well," Francesca assured her soothingly. "We shall be +pardoned much because we are Americans, and will not be expected to know +any better. Besides, the gifted Miss Hamilton is an artist, and that +covers a multitude of sins against conventionality. When the castle +people 'tirl at the pin,' I will appear as the maid, if you like, +following your example at Mrs Bobby's cottage in Belvern, Pen." + +"And it isn't as if there were many houses to choose from, Salemina, nor +as if Bide-a-Wee cottage were cheap," I continued. "Think of the rent we +pay and keep your head high. Remember that the draper's wife says there +is nothing half so comfortable in Inchcaldy, although that is twice as +large a town." + +"INCHCALDY!" ejaculated Francesca, sitting down heavily upon the sofa +and staring at me. + +"Inchcaldy, my dear,--spelled CALDY, but pronounced CAWDY; the +town where you are to take your nonsensical little fripperies to be +laundered." + +"Where is Inchcaldy? How far away?" + +"About five miles, I believe, but a lovely road." + +"Well," she exclaimed bitterly, "of course Scotland is a small, +insignificant country; but, tiny as it is, it presents some liberty +of choice, and why you need have pitched upon Pettybaw, and brought +me here, when it is only five miles from Inchcaldy, and a lovely road +besides, is more than I can understand!" + +"In what way has Inchcaldy been so unhappy as to offend you?" I asked. + +"It has not offended me, save that it chances to be Ronald Macdonald's +parish--that is all." + +"Ronald Macdonald's parish!" we repeated automatically. + +"Certainly--you must have heard him mention Inchcaldy; and how queer +he will think it that I have come to Pettybaw, under all the +circumstances!" + +"We do not know 'all the circumstances,'" quoted Salemina somewhat +haughtily; "and you must remember, my dear, that our opportunities for +speech with Mr. Macdonald have been very rare when you were present. For +my part, I was always in such a tremor of anxiety during his visits lest +one or both of you should descend to blows that I remember no details of +his conversation. Besides, we did not choose Pettybaw; we discovered it +by chance as we were driving from Strathdee to St. Rules. How were we +to know that it was near this fatal Inchcaldy? If you think it best, we +will hold no communication with the place, and Mr. Macdonald need never +know you are here." + +I thought Francesca looked rather startled at this proposition. At all +events she said hastily, "Oh, well, let it go; we could not avoid each +other long, anyway, although it is very awkward, of course; you see, we +did not part friends." + +"I thought I had never seen you on more cordial terms," remarked +Salemina. + +"But you weren't there," answered Francesca unguardedly. + +"Weren't where?" + +"Weren't there." + +"Where?" + +"At the station." + +"What station?" + +"The station in Edinburgh from which I started for the Highlands." + +"You never said that he came to see you off." + +"The matter was too unimportant for notice; and the more I think of his +being here, the less I mind it after all; and so, dull care, begone! +When I first meet him on the sands or in the loaning, I shall say, 'Dear +me, is it Mr. Macdonald! What brought you to our quiet hamlet?' (I shall +put the responsibility on him, you know.) 'That is the worst of these +small countries,--fowk are aye i' the gait! When we part for ever in +America, we are able to stay parted, if we wish.' Then he will say, +'Quite so, quite so; but I suppose even you, Miss Monroe, will allow +that a minister may not move his church to please a lady.' 'Certainly +not,' I shall reply, 'especially when it is Estaiblished!' Then he will +laugh, and we shall be better friends for a few moments; and then I +shall tell him my latest story about the Scotchman who prayed, 'Lord, I +do not ask that Thou shouldst give me wealth; only show me where it is, +and I will attend to the rest.'" + +Salemina moaned at the delightful prospect opening before us, while I +went to the piano and carolled impersonally-- + + "Oh, wherefore did I cross the Forth, + And leave my love behind me? + Why did I venture to the north + With one that did not mind me? + I'm sure I've seen a better limb + And twenty better faces; + But still my mind it runs on him + When I am at the races!" + +Francesca left the room at this, and closed the door behind her with +such energy that the bust of Sir Walter rocked on the hall shelf. +Running upstairs she locked herself in her bedroom, and came down again +only to help us receive Jane Grieve, who arrived at eight o'clock. + +In times of joy Salemina, Francesca, and I occasionally have our +trifling differences of opinion, but in hours of affliction we are as +one flesh. An all-wise Providence sent us Jane Grieve for fear that we +should be too happy in Pettybaw. Plans made in heaven for the discipline +of sinful human flesh are always successful, and this was no exception. + +We had sent a 'machine' from the inn to meet her, and when it drew up at +the door we went forward to greet the rosy little Jane of our fancy. An +aged person, wearing a rusty black bonnet and shawl, and carrying +what appeared to be a tin cake-box and a baby's bath-tub, descended +rheumatically from the vehicle and announced herself as Miss Grieve. She +was too old to call by her Christian name, too sensitive to call by her +surname, so Miss Grieve she remained, as announced, to the end of the +chapter, and our rosy little Jane died before she was actually born. The +man took her grotesque luggage into the kitchen, and Salemina escorted +her thither, while Francesca and I fell into each other's arms and +laughed hysterically. + +"Nobody need tell me that she is Mrs. M'Collop's sister's husband's +niece," she whispered, "although she may possibly be somebody's +grand-aunt. Doesn't she remind you of Mrs. Gummidge?" + +Salemina returned in a quarter of an hour, and sank dejectedly on the +sofa. + +"Run over to the inn, Francesca" she said, "and order bacon and eggs +at eight-thirty to-morrow morning. Miss Grieve thinks we had better not +breakfast at home until she becomes accustomed to the surroundings." + +"Shall we allow her to become accustomed to them?" I questioned. + +"She came up from Glasgow to Edinburgh for the day, and went to see Mrs. +M'Collop just as our telegram arrived. She was living with an 'extremely +nice family' in Glasgow, and only broke her engagement in order to try +Fifeshire air for the summer; so she will remain with us as long as she +is benefited by the climate." + +"Can't you pay her for a month and send her away?" + +"How can we? She is Mrs. M'Collop's sister's husband's niece, and we +intend returning to Mrs. M'Collop. She has a nice ladylike appearance, +but when she takes her bonnet off she looks seventy years old." + +"She ought always to keep it off, then," returned Francesca, "for she +looked eighty with it on. We shall have to soothe her last moments, of +course, and pay her funeral expenses. Did you offer her a cup of tea and +show her the box-bed?" + +"Yes; she said she was muckle obleeged to me, but the coals were so poor +and hard she couldna batter them up to start a fire the nicht, and she +would try the box-bed to see if she could sleep in it. I am glad to +remember that it was you who telegraphed for her, Penelope." + +"Let there be no recriminations," I responded; "let us stand shoulder to +shoulder in this calamity,--isn't there a story called Calamity Jane? We +might live at the inn, and give her the cottage for a summer residence, +but I utterly refuse to be parted from our cat and the 1602 lintel." + +After I have once described Miss Grieve I shall not suffer her to +begloom these pages as she did our young lives. She is so exactly +like her kind in America she cannot be looked upon as a national type. +Everywhere we go we see fresh, fair-haired, sonsie lasses; why should +we have been visited by this affliction, we who have no courage in a +foreign land to rid ourselves of it? + +She appears at the door of the kitchen with some complaint, and stands +there talking to herself in a depressing murmur until she arrives at the +next grievance. Whenever we hear this, which is whenever we are in the +sitting-room, we amuse ourselves by chanting lines of melancholy poetry +which correspond to the sentiments she seems to be uttering. It is the +only way the infliction can be endured, for the sitting-room is so small +that we cannot keep the door closed habitually. The effect of this plan +is something like the following:-- + +She. "The range has sic a bad draft I canna mak' the fire draw!" + + We. 'But I'm ower auld for the tears to start, + An' sae the sighs maun blaw!' + +She. "The clock i' the hall doesna strike. I have to get oot o' my bed +to see the time." + + We. 'The broken hairt it kens + Nae second spring again!' + +She. "There's no' eneuch jugs i' the hoose." + + We. 'I'm downright dizzy wi' the thought-- + In troth I'm like to greet!' + +She. "The sink drain isna recht." + + We. 'An' it's oh! to win awa', awa', + An' it's oh! to win awa'!' + +She. "I canna thole a box-bed!" + + We. 'Ay waukin O + Waukin O an' weary. + Sleep I can get nane, + Ay waukin O!' + +She. "It's fair insultin' to rent a hoose wi' so few convenience." + + We. 'An' I'm ower auld to fish ony mair, + An' I hinna the chance to droon.' + +She. "The work is fair sickenin' i' this hoose, an' a' for ane puir body +to do by her lane." + + We. 'How can ye chant, ye little birds, + An' I sae weary, fu' o' care?' + +She. "Ah, but that was a fine family I lived wi' in Glasgy; an' it's a +wearifu' day's work I've had the day." + + We. 'Oh why was I spared to cry, Wae's me!' + +She. "Why dinna they leave floo'rs i' the garden makin' a mess i' the +hoose wi' 'em? It's not for the knowin' what they will be after next!" + + We. 'Oh, waly waly up the bank, + And waly waly doon the brae!' + +Miss Grieve's plaints never grow less, though we are sometimes at a loss +for appropriate quotations to match them. The poetic interpolations are +introduced merely to show the general spirit of her conversation. They +take the place of her sighs, which are by their nature unprintable. Many +times each day she is wont to sink into one low chair, and, extending +her feet in another, close her eyes and murmur undistinguishable plaints +which come to us in a kind of rhythmic way. She has such a shaking right +hand we have been obliged to give up coffee and have tea, as the former +beverage became too unsettled on its journey from the kitchen to +the breakfast-table. She says she kens she is a guid cook, though +salf-praise is sma' racommendation (sma' as it is she will get nae +ither!); but we have little opportunity to test her skill, as she +prepares only our breakfasts of eggs and porridge. Visions of home-made +goodies had danced before our eyes, but as the hall clock doesna strike +she is unable to rise at any exact hour, and as the range draft is bad, +and the coals too hard to batter up wi' a hatchet, we naturally have to +content ourselves with the baker's loaf. + +And this is a truthful portrait of 'Calamity Jane,' our one Pettybaw +grievance. + + + +Chapter XVI. The path that led to Crummylowe. + + + + 'Gae farer up the burn to Habbie's Howe, + Where a' the sweets o' spring an' simmer grow: + Between twa birks, out o'er a little lin, + The water fa's an' mak's a singan din; + A pool breast-deep, beneath as clear as glass, + Kisses, wi' easy whirls, the bord'ring grass.' + +The Gentle Shepherd. + + + +That is what Peggy says to Jenny in Allan Ramsay's poem, and if you +substitute 'Crummylowe' for 'Habbie's Howe' in the first line, you will +have a lovely picture of the farm-steadin'. + +You come to it by turning the corner from the inn, first passing the +cottage where the lady wishes to rent two rooms for fifteen shillings a +week, but will not give much attendance, as she is slightly asthmatic, +and the house is always as clean as it is this minute, and the view from +the window looking out on Pettybaw Bay canna be surpassed at ony money. +Then comes the little house where Will'am Beattie's sister Mary died in +May, and there wasna a bonnier woman in Fife. Next is the cottage with +the pansy-garden, where the lady in the widow's cap takes five-o'clock +tea in the bay-window, and a snug little supper at eight. She has for +the first, scones and marmalade, and her tea is in a small black teapot +under a red cosy with a white muslin cover drawn over it. At eight she +has more tea, and generally a kippered herring, or a bit of cold mutton +left from the noon dinner. We note the changes in her bill of fare as we +pass hastily by, and feel admitted quite into the family secrets. Beyond +this bay-window, which is so redolent of simple peace and comfort that +we long to go in and sit down, is the cottage with the double white +tulips, the cottage with the collie on the front steps, the doctor's +house with the yellow laburnum tree, and then the house where the +Disagreeable Woman lives. She has a lovely baby, which, to begin with, +is somewhat remarkable, as disagreeable women rarely have babies; or +else, having had them, rapidly lose their disagreeableness--so rapidly +that one has not time to notice it. The Disagreeable Woman's house is at +the end of the row, and across the road is a wicket-gate leading--Where +did it lead?--that was the very point. Along the left, as you lean +wistfully over the gate, there runs a stone wall topped by a green +hedge; and on the right, first furrows of pale fawn, then below, furrows +of deeper brown, and mulberry, and red ploughed earth stretching down to +waving fields of green, and thence to the sea, grey, misty, opalescent, +melting into the pearly white clouds, so that one cannot tell where sea +ends and sky begins. + +There is a path between the green hedge and the ploughed field, and it +leads seductively to the farm-steadin'; or we felt that it might thus +lead, if we dared unlatch the wicket gate. Seeing no sign 'Private Way,' +'Trespassers Not Allowed,' or other printed defiance to the stranger, +we were considering the opening of the gate, when we observed two female +figures coming toward us along the path, and paused until they should +come through. It was the Disagreeable Woman (although we knew it not) +and an elderly friend. We accosted the friend, feeling instinctively +that she was framed of softer stuff, and asked her if the path were a +private one. It was a question that had never met her ear before, and +she was too dull or too discreet to deal with it on the instant. To our +amazement, she did not even manage to falter, 'I couldna say.' + +"Is the path private?" I repeated. + +"It is certainly the idea to keep it a little private," said the +Disagreeable Woman, coming into the conversation without being +addressed. "Where do you wish to go?" + +"Nowhere in particular. The walk looks so inviting we should like to see +the end." + +"It goes only to the Farm, and you can reach that by the highroad; it is +only a half-mile further. Do you wish to call at the Farm?" + +"No, oh no; the path is so very pretty that--" + +"Yes, I see; well, I should call it rather private." And with this she +departed, leaving us to stand on the outskirts of paradise, while she +went into her house and stared at us from the window as she played with +the lovely undeserved baby. But that was not the end of the matter. + +We found ourselves there next day, Francesca and I--Salemina was too +proud--drawn by an insatiable longing to view the beloved and forbidden +scene. We did not dare to glance at the Disagreeable Woman's windows, +lest our courage should ooze away, so we opened the gate and stole +through into the rather private path. + +It was a most lovely path; even if it had not been in a sense +prohibited, it would still have been lovely, simply on its own merits. +There were little gaps in the hedge and the wall, through which we +peered into a daisy-starred pasture, where a white bossy and a herd of +flaxen-haired cows fed on the sweet green grass. The mellow ploughed +earth on the right hand stretched down to the shore-line, and a +plough-boy walked up and down the long, straight furrows whistling 'My +Nannie's awa'.' Pettybaw is so far removed from the music-halls that +their cheap songs and strident echoes never reach its sylvan shades, and +the herd-laddies and plough-boys still sweeten their labours with the +old classic melodies. + +We walked on and on, determined to come every day; and we settled +that if we were accosted by any one, or if our innocent business were +demanded, Francesca should ask, 'Does Mrs. Macstronachlacher live here, +and has she any new-laid eggs?' + +Soon the gates of the Farm appeared in sight. There was a cluster of +buildings, with doves huddling and cooing on the red-tiled roofs,--dairy +houses, workmen's cottages, comely rows of haystacks (towering yellow +things with peaked tops); a little pond with ducks and geese chattering +together as they paddled about, and for additional music the trickling +of two tiny burns making 'a singan din,' as they wimpled through the +bushes. A speckle-breasted thrush perched on a corner of the grey wall +and poured his heart out. Overhead there was a chorus of rooks in the +tall trees, but there was no sound of human voice save that of the +plough-laddie whistling 'My Nannie's awa'.' + +We turned our backs on this darling solitude, and retraced our steps +lingeringly. As we neared the wicket gate again we stood upon a bit of +jutting rock and peered over the wall, sniffing the hawthorn buds with +ecstasy. The white bossy drew closer, treading softly on its daisy +carpet; the wondering cows looked up at us as they peacefully chewed +their cuds; a man in corduroy breeches came from a corner of the +pasture, and with a sharp, narrow hoe rooted out a thistle or two that +had found their way into this sweet feeding-ground. Suddenly we heard +the swish of a dress behind, and turned, conscience-stricken, though we +had in nothing sinned. + +"Does Mrs. Macstronachlacher live here?" stammered Francesca like a +parrot. + +It was an idiotic time and place for the question. We had certainly +arranged that she should ask it, but something must be left to the +judgment in such cases. Francesca was hanging over a stone wall +regarding a herd of cows in a pasture, and there was no possible shelter +for a Mrs. Macstronachlacher within a quarter of a mile. What made +the remark more unfortunate was the fact that, although she had on a +different dress and bonnet, the person interrogated was the Disagreeable +Woman; but Francesca is particularly slow in discerning resemblances. +She would have gone on mechanically asking for new-laid eggs, had I not +caught her eye and held it sternly. The foe looked at us suspiciously +for a moment (Francesca's hats are not easily forgotten), and then +vanished up the path, to tell the people at Crummylowe, I suppose, that +their grounds were invested by marauding strangers whose curiosity was +manifestly the outgrowth of a republican government. + +As she disappeared in one direction, we walked slowly in the other; and +just as we reached the corner of the pasture where two stone walls meet, +and where a group of oaks gives grateful shade, we heard children's +voices. + +"No, no!" cried somebody; "it must be still higher at this end, for the +tower--this is where the king will sit. Help me with this heavy one, +Rafe. Dandie, mind your foot. Why don't you be making the flag for the +ship?--and do keep the Wrig away from us till we finish building!" + + + +Chapter XVII. Playing Sir Patrick Spens. + + + + 'O lang, lang may the ladyes sit + Wi' their face into their hand, + Before they see Sir Patrick Spens + Come sailing to the strand.' + +Sir Patrick Spens. + + + +We forced our toes into the crevices of the wall and peeped stealthily +over the top. Two boys of eight or ten years, with two younger children, +were busily engaged in building a castle. A great pile of stones had +been hauled to the spot, evidently for the purpose of mending the wall, +and these were serving as rich material for sport. The oldest of the +company, a bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked boy in an Eton jacket and broad +white collar, was obviously commander-in-chief; and the next in size, +whom he called Rafe, was a laddie of eight, in kilts. These two looked +as if they might be scions of the aristocracy, while Dandie and the Wrig +were fat little yokels of another sort. The miniature castle must have +been the work of several mornings, and was worthy of the respectful but +silent admiration with which we gazed upon it; but as the last stone +was placed in the tower, the master builder looked up and spied our +interested eyes peering at him over the wall. We were properly abashed, +and ducked our heads discreetly at once, but were reassured by hearing +him run rapidly towards us, calling, "Stop, if you please! Have you +anything on just now--are you busy?" + +We answered that we were quite at leisure. + +"Then would you mind coming in to help us play 'Sir Patrick Spens'? +There aren't enough of us to do it nicely." + +This confidence was touching, and luckily it was not in the least +misplaced. Playing 'Sir Patrick Spens' was exactly in our line, little +as he suspected it. + +"Come and help?" I said. "Simply delighted! Do come, Fanny dear. How can +we get over the wall?" + +"I'll show you the good broken place!" cried Sir Apple-Cheek; and +following his directions we scrambled through, while Rafe took off his +Highland bonnet ceremoniously and handed us down to earth. + +"Hurrah! now it will be something like fun! Do you know 'Sir Patrick +Spens'?" + + +"Every word of it. Don't you want us to pass an examination before you +allow us in the game?" + +"No," he answered gravely; "it's a great help, of course, to know it, +but it isn't necessary. I keep the words in my pocket to prompt Dandie, +and the Wrig can only say two lines, she's so little." (Here he produced +some tattered leaves torn from a book of ballads.) "We've done it many +a time, but this is a new Dunfermline Castle, and we are trying the +play in a different way. Rafe is the king, and Dandie is the 'eldern +knight,'--you remember him?" + +"Certainly; he sat at the king's right knee." + +"Yes, yes, that's the one! Then Rafe is Sir Patrick part of the time, +and I the other part, because everybody likes to be him; but there's +nobody left for the 'lords o' Noroway' or the sailors, and the Wrig is +the only maiden to sit on the shore, and she always forgets to comb her +hair and weep at the right time." + +The forgetful and placid Wrig (I afterwards learned that this is a Scots +word for the youngest bird in the nest) was seated on the grass, with +her fat hands full of pink thyme and white wild woodruff. The sun shone +on her curly flaxen head. She wore a dark blue cotton frock with white +dots, and a short-sleeved pinafore; and though she was utterly useless +from a dramatic point of view, she was the sweetest little Scotch +dumpling I ever looked upon. She had been tried and found wanting in +most of the principal parts of the ballad, but when left out of the +performance altogether she was wont to scream so lustily that all +Crummylowe rushed to her assistance. + +"Now let us practise a bit to see if we know what we are going to do," +said Sir Apple-Cheek. "Rafe, you can be Sir Patrick this time. The +reason why we all like to be Sir Patrick," he explained, turning to me, +"is that the lords o' Noroway say to him-- + + 'Ye Scottishmen spend a' our King's gowd, + And a' our Queenis fee'; + +and then he answers,-- + + '"Ye lee! ye lee! ye leers loud, + Fu' loudly do ye lee!"' + +and a lot of splendid things like that. Well, I'll be the king," and +accordingly he began:-- + + 'The King sits in Dunfermline tower, + Drinking the bluid-red wine. + "O whaur will I get a skeely skipper + To sail this new ship o' mine?"' + +A dead silence ensued, whereupon the king said testily, "Now, Dandie, +you never remember you're the eldern knight; go on!" + +Thus reminded, Dandie recited:-- + + 'O up and spake an eldern knight, + Sat at the King's right knee: + "Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor + That ever sailed the sea."' + +"Now I'll write my letter," said the king, who was endeavouring to make +himself comfortable in his somewhat contracted tower. + + 'The King has written a braid letter + And sealed it with his hand; + And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens, + Was walking on the strand.' + +"Read the letter out loud, Rafe, and then you'll remember what to do." + + '"To Noroway! to Noroway! + To Noroway o'er the faem! + The King's daughter of Noroway, + 'Tis thou maun bring her hame,"' + +read Rafe. + +"Now do the next part!" + +"I can't; I'm going to chuck up that next part. I wish you'd do Sir +Patrick until it comes to 'Ye lee! 'ye lee!'" + +"No, that won't do, Rafe. We have to mix up everybody else, but it's too +bad to spoil Sir Patrick." + +"Well, I'll give him to you, then, and be the king. I don't mind so much +now that we've got such a good tower; and why can't I stop up there even +after the ship sets sail and look out over the sea with a telescope? +That's the way Elizabeth did the time she was king." + +"You can stay till you have to come down and be a dead Scots lord. I'm +not going to lie there as I did last time, with nobody but the Wrig for +a Scots lord, and her forgetting to be dead!" + +Sir Apple-Cheek then essayed the hard part 'chucked up' by Rafe. It was +rather difficult, I confess, as the first four lines were in pantomime, +and required great versatility:-- + + 'The first word that Sir Patrick read, + Fu' loud, loud laughed he: + The neist word that Sir Patrick read, + The tear blinded his e'e.' + +These conflicting emotions successfully simulated, Sir Patrick +resumed:-- + + '"O wha is he has done this deed, + And tauld the King o' me,-- + To send us out, at this time o' the year, + To sail upon the sea?"' + +Then the king stood up in the unstable tower and shouted his own +orders:-- + + '"Be it wind, be it weet, be it hail, be it sleet, + Our ship maun sail the faem; + The King's daughter o' Noroway, + 'Tis we maun fetch her hame."' + +"Can't we rig the ship a little better?" demanded our stage-manager at +this juncture. "It isn't half as good as the tower." + +Ten minutes' hard work, in which we assisted, produced something a +trifle more nautical and seaworthy than the first craft. The ground with +a few boards spread upon it was the deck. Tarpaulin sheets were arranged +on sticks to represent sails, and we located the vessel so cleverly that +two slender trees shot out of the middle of it and served as the tall +topmasts. + +"Now let us make believe that we've hoisted our sails on 'Mononday morn' +and been in Noroway 'weeks but only twae,'" said our leading man; "and +your time has come now,"--turning to us. + +We felt indeed that it had; but plucking up sufficient courage for the +lords o' Noroway, we cried accusingly,-- + + '"Ye Scottishmen spend a' our King's gowd, + And a' our Queenis fee!"' + +Oh but Sir Apple-Cheek was glorious as he roared virtuously:-- + + '"Ye lee! ye lee! ye leers loud, + Fu' loudly do you lee! + + "For I brocht as much white monie + As gane my men and me, + An' I brocht a half-fou o' gude red gowd + Out ower the sea wi' me. + + "But betide me well, betide me wae, + This day I'se leave the shore; + And never spend my King's monie + 'Mong Noroway dogs no more. + + "Make ready, make ready, my merry men a', + Our gude ship sails the morn."' + +"Now you be the sailors, please!" + +Glad to be anything but Noroway dogs, we recited obediently-- + + '"Now, ever alake, my master dear, + I fear a deadly storm? + . . . . . . . + And if ye gang to sea, master, + I fear we'll come to harm."' + +We added much to the effect of this stanza by flinging ourselves on the +turf and embracing Sir Patrick's knees, with which touch of melodrama he +was enchanted. + +Then came a storm so terrible that I can hardly trust myself to describe +its fury. The entire corps dramatique personated the elements, and tore +the gallant ship in twain, while Sir Patrick shouted in the teeth of the +gale-- + + '"O whaur will I get a gude sailor + To tak' my helm in hand, + Till I get up to the tall topmast + To see if I can spy land?"' + +I knew the words a trifle better than Francesca, and thus succeeded in +forestalling her as the fortunate hero-- + + '"O here I am, a sailor gude, + To tak' the helm in hand, + Till you go up to the tall topmast; + But I fear ye'll ne'er spy land."' + +And the heroic sailor was right, for + + 'He hadna gone a step, a step, + A step but only ane, + When a bout flew out o' our goodly ship, + And the saut sea it came in.' + +Then we fetched a web o' the silken claith, and anither o' the twine, as +our captain bade us; we wapped them into our ship's side and letna the +sea come in; but in vain, in vain. Laith were the gude Scots lords to +weet their cork-heeled shune, but they did, and wat their hats abune; +for the ship sank in spite of their despairing efforts, + + 'And mony was the gude lord's son + That never mair cam' hame.' + +Francesca and I were now obliged to creep from under the tarpaulins and +personate the dishevelled ladies on the strand. + +"Will your hair come down?" asked the manager gravely. + +"It will and shall," we rejoined; and it did. + + 'The ladies wrang their fingers white, + The maidens tore their hair.' + +"Do tear your hair, Jessie! It's the only thing you have to do, and you +never do it on time!" + +The Wrig made ready to howl with offended pride, but we soothed her, and +she tore her yellow curls with her chubby hands. + + 'And lang, lang may the maidens sit + Wi' there gowd kaims i' the hair, + A' waitin' for their ain dear luves, + For them they'll see nae mair.' + +I did a bit of sobbing here that would have been a credit to Sarah +Siddons. + +"Splendid! Grand!" cried Sir Patrick, as he stretched himself fifty +fathoms below the imaginary surface of the water, and gave explicit +ante-mortem directions to the other Scots lords to spread themselves out +in like manner. + + 'Half ower, half ower to Aberdour, + 'Tis fifty fathoms deep, + And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens, + Wi' the Scots lords at his feet.' + +"Oh, it is grand!" he repeated jubilantly. "If I could only be the king +and see it all from Dunfermline tower! Could you be Sir Patrick once, do +you think, now that I have shown you how?" he asked Francesca. + +"Indeed I could!" she replied, glowing with excitement (and small +wonder) at being chosen for the principal role. + +"The only trouble is that you do look awfully like a girl in that white +frock." + +Francesca appeared rather ashamed at her natural disqualifications for +the part of Sir Patrick. "If I had only worn my long black cloak!" she +sighed. + +"Oh, I have an idea!" cried the boy. "Hand her the minister's gown from +the hedge, Rafe. You see, Mistress Ogilvie of Crummylowe lent us this +old gown for a sail; she's doing something to a new one, and this was +her pattern." + +Francesca slipped it on over her white serge, and the Pettybaw parson +should have seen her with the long veil of her dark locks floating over +his ministerial garment. + +"It seems a pity to put up your hair," said the stage manager +critically, "because you look so jolly and wild with it down, but I +suppose you must; and will you have Rafe's bonnet?" + +Yes, she would have Rafe's bonnet; and when she perched it on the side +of her head and paced the deck restlessly, while the black gown floated +behind in the breeze, we all cheered with enthusiasm, and, having +rebuilt the ship, began the play again from the moment of the gale. The +wreck was more horribly realistic than ever, this time, because of our +rehearsal; and when I crawled from under the masts and sails to seat +myself on the beach with the Wrig, I had scarcely strength enough to +remove the cooky from her hand and set her a-combing her curly locks. + +When our new Sir Patrick stretched herself on the ocean bed, she fell +with a despairing wail; her gown spread like a pall over the earth, the +Highland bonnet came off, and her hair floated over a haphazard pillow +of Jessie's wildflowers. + +"Oh, it is fine, that part; but from here is where it always goes +wrong!" cried the king from the castle tower. "It's too bad to take +the maidens away from the strand where they look so bonnie, and Rafe +is splendid as the gude sailor, but Dandie looks so silly as one little +dead Scots lord; if we only had one more person, young or old, if he was +ever so stupid!" + +"WOULD I DO?" + +This unexpected offer came from behind one of the trees that served as +topmasts, and at the same moment there issued from that delightfully +secluded retreat Ronald Macdonald, in knickerbockers and a golf-cap. + +Suddenly as this apparition came, there was no lack of welcome on the +children's part. They shouted his name in glee, embraced his legs, and +pulled him about like affectionate young bears. Confusion reigned for +a moment, while Sir Patrick rose from her sea grave all in a mist of +floating hair, from which hung impromptu garlands of pink thyme and +green grasses. + +"Allow me to do the honours, please, Jamie," said Mr. Macdonald, when +he could escape from the children's clutches. "Have you been properly +presented? I suppose not. Ladies, the young Master of Rowardennan. +Jamie, Miss Hamilton and Miss Monroe from the United States of America." +Sir Apple-Cheek bowed respectfully. "Let me present the Honourable Ralph +Ardmore, also from the castle, together with Dandie Dinmont and the Wrig +from Crummylowe. Sir Patrick, it is indeed a pleasure to see you again. +Must you take off my gown? I had thought it was past use, but it never +looked so well before." + +"YOUR gown?" + +The counterfeit presentment of Sir Patrick vanished as the long drapery +flew to the hedge whence it came, and there remained only an offended +young goddess, who swung her dark mane tempestuously to one side, +plaited it in a thick braid, tossed it back again over her white serge +shoulder, and crowded on her sailor hat with unnecessary vehemence. + +"Yes, MY gown; whose else could you more appropriately borrow, pray? +Mistress Ogilvie of Crummylowe presses, sponges, and darns my bachelor +wardrobe, but I confess I never suspected that she rented it out for +theatrical purposes. I have been calling upon you in Pettybaw; Lady +Ardmore was there at the same time. Finding but one of the three +American Graces at home, I stayed a few moments only, and am now +returning to Inchcaldy by way of Crummylowe." Here he plucked the gown +off the hedge and folded it carefully. + +"Can't we keep it for a sail, Mr. Macdonald?" pleaded Jamie. "Mistress +Ogilvie said it wasn't any more good." + +"When Mistress Ogilvie made that remark," replied the Reverend Ronald, +"she had no idea that it would ever touch the shoulders of the martyred +Sir Patrick Spens. Now, I happen to love--" + +Francesca hung out a scarlet flag in each cheek, and I was about to say, +'Don't mind me!' when he continued-- + +"As I was saying, I happen to love 'Sir Patrick Spens,'--it is my +favourite ballad; so, with your permission, I will take the gown, and +you can find something less valuable for a sail!" + +I could never understand just why Francesca was so annoyed at being +discovered in our innocent game. Of course she was prone on Mother Earth +and her tresses were much dishevelled, but she looked lovely after all, +in comparison with me, the humble 'supe' and lightning-change artist; +yet I kept my temper,--at least I kept it until the Reverend Ronald +observed, after escorting us through the gap in the wall, "By the way, +Miss Hamilton, there was a gentleman from Paris at your cottage, and he +is walking down the road to meet you." + +Walking down the road to meet me, forsooth! Have ministers no brains? +The Reverend Mr. Macdonald had wasted five good minutes with his +observations, introductions, explanations, felicitations, and +adorations, and meantime, regardez-moi, messieurs et mesdames, s'il +vous plait! I have been a Noroway dog, a shipbuilder, and a gallant +sailorman; I have been a gurly sea and a towering gale; I have crawled +from beneath broken anchors, topsails, and mizzenmasts to a strand where +I have been a suffering lady plying a gowd kaim. My skirt of blue drill +has been twisted about my person until it trails in front; my collar is +wilted, my cravat untied; I have lost a stud and a sleeve-link; my hair +is in a tangled mass, my face is scarlet and dusty--and a gentleman from +Paris is walking down the road to meet me! + + + +Chapter XVIII. Paris comes to Pettybaw. + + + + 'There were three ladies in a hall-- + With a heigh-ho! and a lily gay, + There came a lord among them all-- + As the primrose spreads so sweetly.' + + --The Cruel Brother. + + + +Willie Beresford has come to Pettybaw, and that Arcadian village has +received the last touch that makes it Paradise. + +We are exploring the neighbourhood together, and whichever path we +take we think it lovelier than the one before. This morning we drove +to Pettybaw Sands, Francesca and Salemina following by the footpath and +meeting us on the shore. It is all so enchantingly fresh and green on +one of these rare bright days: the trig lass bleaching her 'claes' on +the grass by the burn near the little stone bridge; the wild partridges +whirring about in pairs; the farm-boy seated on the clean straw in the +bottom of his cart, and cracking his whip in mere wanton joy at the +sunshine; the pretty cottages; and the gardens with rows of currant and +gooseberry bushes hanging thick with fruit that suggests jam and tart +in every delicious globule. It is a love-coloured landscape, we know it +full well; and nothing in the fair world about us is half as beautiful +as what we see in each other's eyes. Ah, the memories of these first +golden mornings together after our long separation. I shall sprinkle +them with lavender and lay them away in that dim chamber of the heart +where we keep precious things. We all know the chamber. It is fragrant +with other hidden treasures, for all of them are sweet, though some are +sad. That is the reason why we put a finger on the lip and say 'Hush,' +if we open the door and allow any one to peep in. + +We tied the pony by the wayside and alighted: Willie to gather some +sprays of the pink veronica and blue speedwell, I to sit on an old bench +and watch him in happy idleness. The 'white-blossomed slaes' sweetened +the air, and the distant hills were gay with golden whin and broom, or +flushed with the purply-red of the bell heather. + +We heard the note of the cushats from a neighbouring bush. They used +to build their nests on the ground, so the story goes, but the cows +trampled them. Now they are wiser and build higher, and their cry is +supposed to be a derisive one, directed to their ancient enemies. 'Come +noo, Coo, Coo! Come noo!' + +A hedgehog crept stealthily along the ground, and at a sudden sound +curled himself up like a wee brown bear. There were women working in +the fields near by,--a strange sight to our eyes at first, but nothing +unusual here, where many of them are employed on the farms all the year +round, sowing weeding, planting, even ploughing in the spring, and in +winter working at threshing or in the granary. + +An old man, leaning on his staff, came tottering feebly along, and sank +down on the bench beside me. He was dirty, ragged, unkempt, and feeble, +but quite sober, and pathetically anxious for human sympathy. + +"I'm achty-sax year auld,' he maundered, apropos of nothing, "achty-sax +year auld. I've seen five lairds o' Pettybaw, sax placed meenisters, an' +seeven doctors. I was a mason, an' a stoot mon i' thae days, but it's a +meeserable life noo. Wife deid, bairns deid! I sit by my lane, an' smoke +my pipe, wi' naebody to gi'e me a sup o' water. Achty-sax is ower auld +for a mon,--ower auld." + +These are the sharp contrasts of life one cannot bear to face when one +is young and happy. Willie gave him a half-crown and some tobacco +for his pipe, and when the pony trotted off briskly, and we left the +shrunken figure alone on his bench as he was lonely in his life, we +kissed each other and pledged ourselves to look after him as long as +we remain in Pettybaw; for what is love worth if it does not kindle +the flames of spirit, open the gates of feeling, and widen the heart to +shelter all the little loves and great loves that crave admittance? + +As we neared the tiny fishing-village on the sands we met a fishwife +brave in her short skirt and eight petticoats, the basket with its two +hundred pound weight on her head, and the auld wife herself knitting +placidly as she walked along. They look superbly strong, these women; +but, to be sure, the 'weak anes dee,' as one of them told me. + +There was an air of bustle about the little quay,-- + + 'That joyfu' din when the boats come in, + When the boats come in sae early; + When the lift is blue an' the herring-nets fu', + And the sun glints in a' things rarely.' + +The silvery shoals of fish no longer come so near the shore as they used +in the olden time, for then the kirk bell of St. Monan's had its tongue +tied when the 'draive' was off the coast, lest its knell should frighten +away the shining myriads of the deep. + +We climbed the shoulder of a great green cliff until we could sit on the +rugged rocks at the top and overlook the sea. The bluff is well named +Nirly Scaur, and a wild desolate spot it is, with grey lichen-clad +boulders and stunted heather on its summit. In a storm here, the wind +buffets and slashes and scourges one like invisible whips, and below the +sea churns itself into foaming waves, driving its 'infinite squadrons +of wild white horses' eternally toward the shore. It was calm and blue +to-day, and no sound disturbed the quiet save the incessant shriek +and scream of the rock birds, the kittiwakes, black-headed gulls, and +guillemots that live on the sides of these high sheer craigs. Here the +mother guillemot lays her single egg, and here, on these narrow shelves +of precipitous rock, she holds it in place with her foot until the +warmth of her leg and overhanging body hatches it into life, when +she takes it on her back and flies down to the sea. Motherhood under +difficulties, it would seem, and the education of the baby guillemot is +carried forward on Spartan principles; for the moment he is out of the +shell he is swept downward hundreds of feet and plunged into a cold +ocean, where he can sink or swim as instinct serves him. In a life so +fraught with anxieties, exposures, and dangers, it is not strange that +the guillemots keeps up a ceaseless clang of excited conversation, +a very riot and wrangle of altercation and argument which the +circumstances seem to warrant. The prospective father is obliged to take +turns with the prospective mother, and hold the one precious egg on the +rock while she goes for a fly, a swim, a bite, and a sup. As there are +five hundred other parents on the same rock, and the eggs look to be +only a couple of inches apart, the scene must be distracting, and I have +no doubt we should find, if statistics were gathered, that thousands of +guillemots die of nervous prostration. + +Willie and I interpreted the clamour somewhat as follows:-- + +[Between parent birds.] + +"I am going to take my foot off. Are you ready to put yours on? Don't be +clumsy! Wait a minute, I'm not ready. I'M NOT READY, I TELL YOU! NOW!!" + +[Between rival mothers.] + +"Your egg is so close to mine that I can't breathe---" + +"Move your egg, then, I can't move mine!" + +"You're sitting so close, I can't stretch my wings." + +"Neither can I. You've got as much room as I have." + +"I shall tumble if you crowd me." + +"Go ahead and tumble, then! There is plenty of room in the sea." + +[From one father to another ceremoniously.] + +"Pardon me, but I'm afraid I shoved your wife off the rock last night." + +"Don't mention it. I remember I shoved off your wife's mother last +year." + +We walked among the tiny whitewashed low-roofed cots, each with its +silver-skinned fishes tacked invitingly against the door-frame to dry, +until we came to my favourite, the corner cottage in the row. It has +beautiful narrow garden strips in front,--solid patches of colour in +sweet gillyflower bushes, from which the kindly housewife plucked a +nosegay for us. Her white columbines she calls 'granny's mutches'; and +indeed they are not unlike those fresh white caps. Dear Robbie Burns, +ten inches high in plaster, stands in the sunny window in a tiny box of +blossoming plants surrounded by a miniature green picket fence. Outside, +looming white among the gillyflowers, is Sir Walter, and near him is +still another and a larger bust on a cracked pedestal a foot high, +perhaps. We did not recognise the head at once, and asked the little +woman who it was. + +"Homer, the graund Greek poet," she answered cheerily; "an' I'm to have +anither o' Burns, as tall as Homer, when my daughter comes hame frae +E'nbro'." + +If the shade of Homer keeps account of his earthly triumphs, I think he +is proud of his place in that humble Scotchwoman's gillyflower garden, +with his head under the drooping petals of granny's white mutches. + +What do you think her 'mon' is called in the village! John o' Mary! But +he is not alone in his meekness, for there are Jock o' Meg, Willie +o' Janet, Jem o' Tibby, and a dozen others. These primitive +fishing-villages are the places where all the advanced women ought +to congregate, for the wife is head of the house; the accountant, the +treasurer, the auditor, the chancellor of the exchequer; and though +her husband does catch the fish for her to sell, that is accounted +apparently as a detail too trivial for notice. + +When we passed Mary's cottage on our way to the sands next day, Burns's +head had been accidentally broken off by the children, and we felt as +though we had lost a friend; but Scotch thrift, and loyalty to the +dear Ploughman Poet, came to the rescue, and when we returned, Robert's +plaster head had been glued to his body. He smiled at us again from +between the two scarlet geraniums, and a tendril of ivy had been gently +curled about his neck to hide the cruel wound. + +After such long, lovely mornings as this, there is a late luncheon under +the shadow of a rock with Salemina and Francesca, an idle chat, or the +chapter of a book, and presently Lady Ardmore and her daughter Elizabeth +drive down to the sands. They are followed by Robin Anstruther, Jamie, +and Ralph on bicycles, and before long the stalwart figure of Ronald +Macdonald appears in the distance, just in time for a cup of tea, which +we brew in Lady Ardmore's bath-house on the beach. + + + +Chapter XIX. Fowk o' Fife. + + + + 'To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays, + The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene; + The native feelings strong, the guileless ways.' + +The Cotter's Saturday Night. + + + +We have lived in Pettybaw a very short time, but I see that we have +already made an impression upon all grades of society. This was not our +intention. We gave Edinburgh as our last place of residence, with the +view of concealing our nationality, until such time as we should choose +to declare it; that is, when public excitement with regard to our +rental of the house in the loaning should have lapsed into a state of +indifference. And yet, modest, economical, and commonplace as has been +the administration of our affairs, our method of life has evidently +been thought unusual, and our conduct not precisely the conduct of other +summer visitors. Even our daily purchases, in manner, in number, and in +character, seem to be looked upon as eccentric, for whenever we leave a +shop, the relatives of the greengrocer, flesher, draper, whoever it may +be, bound downstairs, surround him in an eager circle, and inquire the +latest news. + +In an unwise moment we begged the draper's wife to honour us with +a visit and explain the obliquities of the kitchen range and the +tortuosities of the sink-spout to Miss Grieve. While our landlady was +on the premises, I took occasion to invite her up to my own room, with a +view of seeing whether my mattress of pebbles and iron-filings could +be supplemented by another of shavings or straw, or some material less +provocative of bodily injuries. She was most sympathetic, persuasive, +logical and after the manner of her kind proved to me conclusively that +the trouble lay with the too-saft occupant of the bed, not with the +bed itself, and gave me statistics with regard to the latter which +established its reputation and at the same moment destroyed my own. + +She looked in at the various doors casually as she passed up and down +the stairs,--all save that of the dining-room, which Francesca had +prudently locked to conceal the fact that we had covered the family +portraits,--and I noticed at the time that her face wore an expression +of mingled grief and astonishment. It seemed to us afterward that there +was a good deal more passing up and down the loaning than when we first +arrived. At dusk especially, small processions of children and young +people walked by our cottage and gave shy glances at the windows. + +Finding Miss Grieve in an unusually amiable mood, I inquired the +probable cause of this phenomenon. She would not go so far as to give +any judicial opinion, but offered a few conjectures. + +It might be the tirling-pin; it might be the white satin ribbons on the +curtains; it might be the guitars and banjos; it might be the bicycle +crate; it might be the profusion of plants; it might be the continual +feasting and revelry; it might be the blazing fires in a Pettybaw +summer. She thought a much more likely reason, however, was because +it had become known in the village that we had moved every stick +of furniture in the house out of its accustomed place and taken the +dressing-tables away from the windows,--'the windys,' she called them. + +I discussed this matter fully with Mr. Macdonald later on. He laughed +heartily, but confessed, with an amused relish of his national +conservatism, that to his mind there certainly was something radical, +advanced, and courageous in taking a dressing-table away from its place, +back to the window, and putting it anywhere else in a room. He would be +frank, he said, and acknowledge that it suggested an undisciplined and +lawless habit of thought, a disregard for authority, a lack of reverence +for tradition, and a riotous and unbridled imagination. + +This view of the matter gave us exquisite enjoyment. + +"But why?" I asked laughingly. "The dressing-table is not a sacred +object, even to a woman. Why treat it with such veneration? Where there +is but one good light, and that immediately in front of the window, +there is every excuse for the British custom, but when the light is well +diffused, why not place the table where-ever it looks well?" + +"Ah, but it doesn't look well anywhere but back to the window," said Mr. +Macdonald artlessly. "It belongs there, you see; it has probably been +there since the time of Malcolm Canmore, unless Margaret was too pious +to look in a mirror. With your national love of change, you cannot +conceive how soothing it is to know that whenever you enter your gate +and glance upward, you will always see the curtains parted, and between +them, like an idol in a shrine, the ugly wooden back of a little oval +or oblong looking-glass. It gives one a sense of permanence in a world +where all is fleeting." + +The public interest in our doings seems to be entirely of a friendly +nature, and if our neighbours find a hundredth part of the charm and +novelty in us that we find in them, they are fortunate indeed, and we +cheerfully sacrifice our privacy on the altar of the public good. + +A village in Scotland is the only place I can fancy where housekeeping +becomes an enthralling occupation. All drudgery disappears in a rosy +glow of unexpected, unique, and stimulating conditions. I would rather +superintend Miss Grieve, and cause the light of amazement to gleam +ten times daily in her humid eye, than lead a cotillion with Willie +Beresford. I would rather do the marketing for our humble breakfasts and +teas, or talk over the day's luncheons and dinners with Mistress Brodie +of the Pettybaw Inn and Posting Establishment, than go to the opera. + +Salemina and Francesca do not enjoy it all quite as intensely as I, so +they considerately give me the lion's share. Every morning, after an +exhilarating interview with the Niobe of our kitchen (who thinks me +irresponsible, and prays Heaven in her heart I be no worse), I put on +my goloshes, take my umbrella, and trudge up and down the little streets +and lanes on real and, if need be, imaginary errands. The Duke of +Wellington said, 'When fair in Scotland, always carry an umbrella; +when it rains, please yourself,' and I sometimes agree with Stevenson's +shivering statement, 'Life does not seem to me to be an amusement +adapted to this climate.' I quoted this to the doctor yesterday, but he +remarked with some surprise that he had not missed a day's golfing for +weeks. The chemist observed as he handed me a cake of soap, 'Won'erful +blest in weather, we are, mam,' simply because, the rain being +unaccompanied with high wind, one was enabled to hold up an umbrella +without having it turned inside out. When it ceased dripping for an +hour at noon, the greengrocer said cheerily, 'Another grand day, mam!' +I assented, though I could not for the life of me remember when the last +one occurred. However, dreary as the weather may be, one cannot be dull +when doing one's morning round of shopping in Pettybaw or Strathdee. I +have only to give you thumb-nail sketches of our favourite tradespeople +to convince you of that fact. + + . . . . + +We bought our first groceries of Mrs. Robert Phin, of Strathdee, simply +because she is an inimitable conversationalist. She is expansive, too, +about family matters, and tells us certain of her 'mon's' faults which +it would be more seemly to keep in the safe shelter of her own bosom. + +Rab takes a wee drappie too much, it appears, and takes it so often that +he has little time to earn an honest penny for his family. This is bad +enough; but the fact that Mrs. Phin has been twice wed before, and that +in each case she innocently chose a ne'er-do-weel for a mate, makes +her a trifle cynical. She told me that she had laid twa husbands in the +kirk-yard near which her little shop stands, and added cheerfully, as +I made some sympathetic response, 'An' I hope it'll no' be lang afore I +box Rab!' + +Salemina objects to the shop because it is so disorderly. Soap and +sugar, tea and bloaters, starch and gingham, lead pencils and sausages, +lie side by side cosily. Boxes of pins are kept on top of kegs of +herrings. Tins of coffee are distributed impartially anywhere and +everywhere, and the bacon sometimes reposes in a glass case with +small-wares and findings, out of the reach of Alexander's dogs. + +Alexander is one of a brood, or perhaps I should say three broods, of +children which wander among the barrels and boxes and hams and winceys +seeking what they may devour,--a handful of sugar, a prune, or a +sweetie. + +We often see the bairns at their luncheon or dinner in a little room +just off the shop, Alexander the Small always sitting or kneeling on a +'creepie,' holding his plate down firmly with the left hand and eating +with the right, whether the food be fish, porridge, or broth. In the +Phin family the person who does not hold his plate down runs the risk of +losing it to one of the other children or to the dogs, who, with eager +eye and reminding paw, gather round the hospitable board, licking their +chops hopefully. + +I enjoy these scenes very much, but, alas! I can no longer witness them +as often as formerly. + +This morning Mrs. Phin greeted me with some embarrassment. + +"Maybe ye'll no' ken me," she said, her usually clear speech a little +blurred. "It's the teeth. I've mislaid 'em somewhere. I paid far too +much siller for 'em to wear 'em ilka day. Sometimes I rest 'em in the +teabox to keep 'em awa' frae the bairns, but I canna find 'em theer. +I'm thinkin' maybe they'll be in the rice, but I've been ower thrang to +luik!" + +This anecdote was too rich to keep to myself, but its unconscious humour +made no impression upon Salemina, who insisted upon the withdrawal of +our patronage. I have tried to persuade her that, whatever may be said +of tea and rice, we run no risk in buying eggs; but she is relentless. + + . . . . + +The kirkyard where Rab's two predecessors have been laid, and where Rab +will lie when Mrs. Phin has 'boxed' him, is a sleepy little place set on +a gentle slope of ground, softly shaded by willow and yew trees. It is +enclosed by a stone wall, into which an occasional ancient tombstone +is built, its name and date almost obliterated by stress of time and +weather. + +We often walk through its quiet, myrtle-bordered paths on our way to +the other end of the village, where Mrs. Bruce, the flesher, keeps an +unrivalled assortment of beef and mutton. The headstones, many of them +laid flat upon the graves, are interesting to us because of their quaint +inscriptions, in which the occupation of the deceased is often stated +with modest pride and candour. One expects to see the achievements of +the soldier, the sailor, or the statesman carved in the stone that marks +his resting-place, but to our eyes it is strange enough to read that the +subject of eulogy was a plumber, tobacconist, maker of golf-balls, or +a golf champion; in which latter case there is a spirited etching +or bas-relief of the dead hero, with knickerbockers, cap, and clubs +complete. + +There, too, lies Thomas Loughead, Hairdresser, a profession far too +little celebrated in song and story. His stone is a simple one, and +bears merely the touching tribute:-- + + He was lovely and pleasant in his life, + +the inference being, to one who knows a line of Scripture, that in his +death he was not divided. + +These kirkyard personalities almost lead one to believe in the +authenticity of the British tradesman's epitaph, wherein his +practical-minded relict stated that the 'bereaved widow would continue +to carry on the tripe and trotter business at the old stand.' + + . . . . + +One day when we were walking through the little village of Strathdee +we turned the corner of a quiet side street and came suddenly upon +something altogether strange and unexpected. + +A stone cottage of the everyday sort stood a trifle back from the road +and bore over its front door a sign announcing that Mrs. Bruce, Flesher, +carried on her business within; and indeed one could look through +the windows and see ruddy joints hanging from beams, and piles of +pink-and-white steaks and chops lying neatly on the counter, crying, +'Come, eat me!' Nevertheless, one's first glance would be arrested +neither by Mrs Bruce's black-and-gold sign, nor by the enticements of +her stock-in-trade, because one's attention is rapped squarely between +the eyes by an astonishing shape that arises from the patch of lawn +in front of the cottage, and completely dominates the scene. Imagine +yourself face to face with the last thing you would expect to see in +a modest front dooryard,--the figurehead of a ship, heroic in size, +gorgeous in colour, majestic in pose! A female personage it appears to +be from the drapery, which is the only key the artist furnishes as to +sex, and a queenly female withal, for she wears a crown at least a foot +high, and brandishes a forbidding sceptre. All this seen from the front, +but the rear view discloses the fact that the lady terminates in the +tail of a fish which wriggles artistically in mid-air and is of a +brittle sort, as it has evidently been thrice broken and glued together. + +Mrs Bruce did not leave us long in suspense, but obligingly came out, +partly to comment on the low price of mutton and partly to tell the +tale of the mammoth mermaid. By rights, of course, Mrs. Bruce's husband +should have been the gallant captain of a bark which foundered at sea +and sent every man to his grave on the ocean-bed. The ship's figurehead +should have been discovered by some miracle, brought to the sorrowing +widow, and set up in the garden in eternal remembrance of the dear +departed. This was the story in my mind, but as a matter of fact the +rude effigy was wrought by Mrs. Bruce's father for a ship to be called +the Sea Queen, but by some mischance, ship and figurehead never came +together, and the old wood-carver left it to his daughter, in lieu of +other property. It has not been wholly unproductive, Mrs. Bruce fancies, +for the casual passers-by, like those who came to scoff and remained +to pray, go into the shop to ask questions about the Sea Queen and buy +chops out of courtesy and gratitude. + + . . . . + +On our way to the bakery, which is a daily walk with us, we always +glance at a little cot in a grassy lane just off the fore street. In +one half of this humble dwelling Mrs. Davidson keeps a slender stock of +shop-worn articles,--pins, needles, threads, sealing-wax, pencils, and +sweeties for the children, all disposed attractively upon a single shelf +behind the window. + +Across the passage, close to the other window, sits day after day an old +woman of eight-six summers who has lost her kinship with the present and +gone back to dwell for ever in the past. A small table stands in front +of her rush-bottomed chair, the old family Bible rests upon it, and in +front of the Bible are always four tiny dolls, with which the trembling +old fingers play from morning till night. They are cheap, common little +puppets, but she robes and disrobes them with tenderest care. They are +put to bed upon the Bible, take their walks along its time-worn pages, +are married on it, buried on it, and the direst punishment they ever +receive is to be removed from its sacred covers and temporarily hidden +beneath the dear old soul's black alpaca apron. She is quite happy with +her treasures on week-days; but on Sundays--alas and alas! the poor old +dame sits in her lonely chair with the furtive tears dropping on her +wrinkled cheeks, for it is a God-fearing household, and it is neither +lawful nor seemly to play with dolls on the Sawbath! + + . . . . + +Mrs. Nicolson is the presiding genius of the bakery, she is more--she +is the bakery itself. A Mr. Nicolson there is, and he is known to be the +baker, but he dwells in the regions below the shop and only issues at +rare intervals, beneath the friendly shelter of a huge tin tray filled +with scones and baps. + +If you saw Mrs. Nicolson's kitchen with the firelight gleaming on its +bright copper, its polished candlesticks, and its snowy floor, you would +think her an admirable housewife, but you would get no clue to those +shrewd and masterful traits of character which reveal themselves chiefly +behind the counter. + +Miss Grieve had purchased of Mrs. Nicolson a quarter section of very +appetising ginger-cake to eat with our afternoon tea, and I stepped in +to buy more. She showed me a large round loaf for two shillings. + +"No," I objected, "I cannot use a whole loaf, thank you. We eat very +little at a time, and like it perfectly fresh. I wish a small piece such +as my maid bought the other day." + +Then ensued a discourse which I cannot render in the vernacular, more's +the pity, though I understood it all too well for my comfort. The +substance of it was this: that she couldna and wouldna tak' it in hand +to give me a quarter section of cake when the other three-quarters might +gae dry in the bakery; that the reason she sold the small piece on the +former occasion was that her daughter, her son-in-law, and their three +children came from Ballahoolish to visit her, and she gave them a +high tea with no expense spared; that at this function they devoured +three-fourths of a ginger-cake, and just as she was mournfully regarding +the remainder my servant came in and took it off her hands; that she had +kept a bakery for thirty years and her mother before her, and never had +a two-shilling ginger-cake been sold in pieces before, nor was it likely +ever to occur again; that if I, under Providence, so to speak, had been +the fortunate gainer by the transaction, why not eat my six penny-worth +in solemn gratitude once for all, and not expect a like miracle to +happen the next week? And finally, that two-shilling ginger-cakes were, +in the very nature of things, designed for large families; and it +was the part of wisdom for small families to fix their affections on +something else, for she couldna and wouldna tak' it in hand to cut a +rare and expensive article for a small customer. + +The torrent of logic was over, and I said humbly that I would take the +whole loaf. + +"Verra weel, mam," she responded more affably, "thank you kindly; no, I +couldna tak' it in hand to sell six pennyworth of that ginger-cake and +let one-and-sixpence worth gae dry in the bakery.--A beautiful day, mam! +Won'erful blest in weather ye are! Let me open your umbrella for you, +mam!" + + . . . . + +David Robb is the weaver of Pettybaw. All day long he sits at his +old-fashioned hand-loom, which, like the fruit of his toil and the dear +old greybeard himself, belongs to a day that is past and gone. + +He might have work enough to keep an apprentice busy, but where would +he find a lad sufficiently behind the times to learn a humble trade now +banished to the limbo of superseded, almost forgotten things? + +His home is but a poor place, but the rough room in which he works is +big enough to hold a deal of sweet content. It is cheery enough, too, +to attract the Pettybaw weans, who steal in on wet days and sit on the +floor playing with the thrums, or with bits of coloured ravellings. +Sometimes when they have proved themselves wise and prudent little +virgins, they are even allowed to touch the hanks of pink and yellow and +blue yarn that lie in rainbow-hued confusion on the long deal table. + +All this time the 'heddles' go up and down, up and down, with their +ceaseless clatter, and David throws the shuttle back and forth as he +weaves his old-fashioned winceys. + +We have grown to be good friends, David and I, and I have been permitted +the signal honour of painting him at his work. + +The loom stands by an eastern window, and the rare Pettybaw sunshine +filters through the branches of a tree, shines upon the dusty +window-panes, and throws a halo round David's head that he well deserves +and little suspects. In my foreground sit Meg and Jean and Elspeth +playing with thrums and wearing the fruit of David's loom in their +gingham frocks. David himself sits on his wooden bench behind the maze +of cords that form the 'loom harness.' + +The snows of seventy winters powder his hair and beard. His spectacles +are often pushed back on his kindly brow, but no glass could wholly +obscure the clear integrity and steadfast purity of his eyes; and as +for his smile, I have not the art to paint that! It holds in solution so +many sweet though humble virtues of patience, temperance, self-denial, +honest endeavour, that my brush falters in the attempt to fix the +radiant whole upon the canvas. Fashions come and go, modern improvements +transform the arts and trades, manual skill gives way to the cunning of +the machine, but old David Robb, after more than fifty years of toil, +still sits at his hand-loom and weaves his winceys for the Pettybaw +bairnies. + +David has small book-learning, so he tells me; and indeed he had need to +tell me, for I should never have discovered it myself,--one misses it so +little when the larger things are all present! + +A certain summer visitor in Pettybaw (a compatriot of ours, by the way) +bought a quantity of David's orange-coloured wincey, and finding that it +wore like iron, wished to order more. She used the word 'reproduce' +in her telegram, as there was one pattern and one colour she specially +liked. Perhaps the context was not illuminating, but at any rate the +word 'reproduce' was not in David's vocabulary, and putting back his +spectacles he told me his difficulty in deciphering the exact meaning of +his fine-lady patron. He called at the Free Kirk manse,--the meenister +was no' at hame; then to the library,--it was closed; then to the +Estaiblished manse,--the meenister was awa'. At last he obtained a +glance at the schoolmaster's dictionary, and turning to 'reproduce' +found that it meant 'nought but mak' ower again';--and with an amused +smile at the bedevilments of language he turned once more to his loom +and I to my canvas. + +Notwithstanding his unfamiliarity with 'langnebbit' words, David has +absorbed a deal of wisdom in his quiet life; though so far as I can see, +his only books have been the green tree outside his window, a glimpse of +the distant ocean, and the toil of his hands. + +But I sometimes question if as many scholars are not made as marred in +this wise, for--to the seeing eye--the waving leaf and the far sea, the +daily task, one's own heart-beats, and one's neighbour's,--these teach +us in good time to interpret Nature's secrets, and man's, and God's as +well. + + + +Chapter XX. A Fifeshire tea-party. + + + + 'The knights they harpit in their bow'r, + The ladyes sew'd and sang; + The mirth that was in that chamber + Through all the place it rang.' + +Rose the Red and White Lily. + + + +Tea at Rowardennan Castle is an impressive and a delightful function. +It is served by a ministerial-looking butler and a +just-ready-to-be-ordained footman. They both look as if they had been +nourished on the Thirty-Nine Articles, but they know their business as +well as if they had been trained in heathen lands,--which is saying a +good deal, for everybody knows that heathen servants wait upon one +with idolatrous solicitude. However, from the quality of the cheering +beverage itself down to the thickness of the cream, the thinness of the +china, the crispness of the toast, and the plummyness of the cake, tea +at Rowardennan Castle is perfect in every detail. + +The scones are of unusual lightness, also. I should think they would +scarcely weigh more than four, perhaps even five, to a pound; but I am +aware that the casual traveller, who eats only at hotels, and never has +the privilege of entering feudal castles, will be slow to believe this +estimate, particularly just after breakfast. + +Salemina always describes a Scotch scone as an aspiring but unsuccessful +soda-biscuit of the New England sort. Stevenson, in writing of that +dense black substance, inimical to life, called Scotch bun, says that +the patriotism that leads a Scotsman to eat it will hardly desert him in +any emergency. Salemina thinks that the scone should be bracketed with +the bun (in description, of course, never in the human stomach), and +says that, as a matter of fact, 'th' unconquer'd Scot' of old was not +only clad in a shirt of mail, but well fortified within when he went +forth to warfare after a meal of oatmeal and scones. She insists that +the spear which would pierce the shirt of mail would be turned aside +and blunted by the ordinary scone of commerce; but what signifies the +opinion of a woman who eats sugar on her porridge? + +Considering the air of liberal hospitality that hangs about the castle +tea-table, I wonder that our friends do not oftener avail themselves +of its privileges and allow us to do so; but on all dark, foggy, or +inclement days, or whenever they tire of the sands, everybody persists +in taking tea at Bide-a-Wee Cottage. + +We buy our tea of the Pettybaw grocer, some of our cups are cracked, +the teapot is of earthenware, Miss Grieve disapproves of all social +tea-fuddles, and shows it plainly when she brings in the tray, and the +room is so small that some of us overflow into the hall or the garden; +it matters not; there is some fatal charm in our humble hospitality. +At four o'clock one of us is obliged to be, like Sister Anne, on the +housetop; and if company approaches, she must descend and speed to +the plumber's for six pennyworth extra of cream. In most well-ordered +British households Miss Grieve would be requested to do this speeding, +but both her mind and her body move too slowly for such domestic crises; +and then, too, her temper has to be kept as unruffled as possible, so +that she will cut the bread and butter thin. This she generally does if +she has not been 'fair doun-hadden wi' wark'; but the washing of her +own spinster cup and plate, together with the incident sighs and groans, +occupies her till so late an hour that she is not always dressed for +callers. + +Willie and I were reading The Lady of the Lake the other day, in the +back garden, surrounded by the verdant leafage of our own kale-yard. +It is a pretty spot when the sun shines, a trifle domestic in its air, +perhaps, but restful: Miss Grieve's dish-towels and aprons drying on the +currant bushes, the cat playing with a mutton-bone or a fish-tail on the +grass, and the little birds perching on the rims of our wash-boiler +and water-buckets. It can be reached only by way of the kitchen, which +somewhat lessens its value as a pleasure-ground or a rustic retreat, but +Willie and I retire there now and then for a quiet chat. + +On this particular occasion Willie was declaiming the exciting verses +where Fitz-James and Murdoch are crossing the stream + + 'That joins Loch Katrine to Achray,' + +where the crazed Blanche of Devan first appears:-- + + 'All in the Trosachs' glen was still, + Noontide was sleeping on the hill: + Sudden his guide whoop'd loud and high-- + "Murdoch! was that a signal cry?"' + +"It was indeed," said Francesca, appearing suddenly at an upper window +overhanging the garden. "Pardon this intrusion, but the Castle people +are here," she continued in what is known as a stage whisper,--that is, +one that can be easily heard by a thousand persons,--"the Castle people +and the ladies from Pettybaw House; and Mr. Macdonald is coming down the +loaning; but Calamity Jane is making her toilet in the kitchen, and you +cannot take Mr. Beresford through into the sitting-room at present. She +says this hoose has so few conveniences that it's 'fair sickenin'.'" + +"How long will she be?" queried Mr. Beresford anxiously, putting The +Lady of the Lake in his pocket, and pacing up and down between the rows +of cabbages. + +"She has just begun. Whatever you do, don't unsettle her temper, for +she will have to prepare for eight to-day. I will send Mr. Macdonald and +Miss Macrae to the bakery for gingerbread, to gain time, and possibly +I can think of a way to rescue you. If I can't, are you tolerably +comfortable? Perhaps Miss Grieve won't mind Penelope, and she can come +through the kitchen any time and join us; but naturally you don't want +to be separated, that's the worst of being engaged. Of course I can +lower your tea in a tin bucket, and if it should rain I can throw out +umbrellas. Would you like your golf-caps, Pen? 'Won'erful blest in +weather ye are, mam!' The situation is not so bad as it might be," she +added consolingly, "because in case Miss Grieve's toilet should last +longer than usual, your wedding need not be indefinitely postponed, for +Mr. Macdonald can marry you from this window." + +Here she disappeared, and we had scarcely time to take in the full +humour of the affair before Robin Anstruther's laughing eyes appeared +over the top of the high brick wall that protects our garden on three +sides. + +"Do not shoot," said he. "I am not come to steal the fruit, but to +succour humanity in distress. Miss Monroe insisted that I should borrow +the inn ladder. She thought a rescue would be much more romantic than +waiting for Miss Grieve. Everybody is coming out to witness it, at least +all your guests,--there are no strangers present,--and Miss Monroe is +already collecting sixpence a head for the entertainment, to be given, +she says, for your dear Friar's sustenation fund." + +He was now astride of the wall, and speedily lifted the ladder to our +side, where it leaned comfortably against the stout branches of the +draper's peach vine. Willie ran nimbly up the ladder and bestrode the +wall. I followed, first standing, and then decorously sitting down on +the top of it. Mr. Anstruther pulled up the ladder, and replaced it on +the side of liberty; then he descended, then Willie, and I last of all, +amidst the acclamations of the onlookers, a select company of six or +eight persons. + +When Miss Grieve formally entered the sitting-room bearing the tea-tray, +she was buskit braw in black stuff gown, clean apron, and fresh cap +trimmed with purple ribbons, under which her white locks were neatly +dressed. + +She deplored the coolness of the tea, but accounted for it to me in +an aside by the sickening quality of Mrs. Sinkler's coals and Mr. +Macbrose's kindling-wood, to say nothing of the insulting draft in the +draper's range. When she left the room, I suppose she was unable to +explain the peals of laughter that rang through our circumscribed halls. + +Lady Ardmore insists that the rescue was the most unique episode she +ever witnessed, and says that she never understood America until +she made our acquaintance. I persuaded her that this was fallacious +reasoning; that while she might understand us by knowing America, she +could not possibly reverse this mental operation and be sure of the +result. The ladies of Pettybaw House said that the occurrence was as +Fifish as anything that ever happened in Fife. The kingdom of Fife is +noted, it seems, for its 'doocots [dovecots] and its daft lairds,' +and to be eccentric and Fifish are one and the same thing. Thereupon +Francesca told Mr. Macdonald a story she heard in Edinburgh, to the +effect that when a certain committee or council was quarrelling as +to which of certain Fifeshire towns should be the seat of a projected +lunatic asylum, a new resident arose and suggested that the building of +a wall round the kingdom of Fife would solve the difficulty, settle +all disputes, and give sufficient room for the lunatics to exercise +properly. + +This is the sort of tale that a native can tell with a genial chuckle, +but it comes with poor grace from an American lady sojourning in Fife. +Francesca does not mind this, however, as she is at present avenging +fresh insults to her own beloved country. + + + +Chapter XXI. International bickering. + + + + With mimic din of stroke and ward + The broadsword upon target jarr'd. + +The Lady of the Lake. + + + +Robin Anstruther was telling stories at the tea-table. + +"I got acquainted with an American girl in rather a queer sort of +way," he said, between cups. "It was in London, on the Duke of York's +wedding-day. I'm rather a tall chap, you see, and in the crowd somebody +touched me on the shoulder, and a plaintive voice behind me said, +'You're such a big man, and I am so little, will you please help me to +save my life? My mother was separated from me in the crowd somewhere as +we were trying to reach the Berkeley, and I don't know what to do.' +I was a trifle nonplussed, but I did the best I could. She was a tiny +thing, in a marvellous frock and a flowery hat and a silver girdle and +chatelaine. In another minute she spied a second man, an officer, a full +head taller than I am, broad shoulders, splendidly put up altogether. +Bless me! if she didn't turn to him and say, 'Oh, you're so nice and +big, you're even bigger than this other gentleman, and I need you both +in this dreadful crush. If you'll be good enough to stand on either +side of me, I shall be awfully obliged.' We exchanged amused glances +of embarrassment over her blonde head, but there was no resisting the +irresistible. She was a small person, but she had the soul of a general, +and we obeyed orders. We stood guard over her little ladyship for nearly +an hour, and I must say she entertained us thoroughly, for she was as +clever as she was pretty. Then I got her a seat in one of the windows of +my club, while the other man, armed with a full description, went out to +hunt up the mother; and, by Jove! he found her, too. She would have her +mother, and her mother she had. They were awfully jolly people; they +came to luncheon in my chambers at the Albany afterwards, and we grew to +be great friends." + +"I dare say she was an English girl masquerading," I remarked +facetiously. "What made you think her an American?" + +"Oh, her general appearance and accent, I suppose." + +"Probably she didn't say Barkley," observed Francesca cuttingly; "she +would have been sure to commit that sort of solecism." + +"Why, don't you say Barkley in the States?" + +"Certainly not; we never call them the States, and with us c-l-e-r-k +spells clerk, and B-e-r-k Berk." + +"How very odd!" remarked Mr. Anstruther. + +"No odder than you saying Bark, and not half as odd as your calling it +Albany," I interpolated, to help Francesca. + +"Quite so," said Mr. Anstruther; "but how do you say Albany in America?" + +"Penelope and I always call it Allbany," responded Francesca +nonsensically, "but Salemina, who has been much in England, always calls +it Albany." + +This anecdote was the signal for Miss Ardmore to remark (apropos of her +own discrimination and the American accent) that hearing a lady ask for +a certain med'cine in a chemist's shop, she noted the intonation, and +inquired of the chemist, when the fair stranger had retired, if she +were not an American. "And she was!" exclaimed the Honourable Elizabeth +triumphantly. "And what makes it the more curious, she had been over +here twenty years, and of course, spoke English quite properly." + +In avenging fancied insults, it is certainly more just to heap +punishment on the head of the real offender than upon his neighbour, +and it is a trifle difficult to decide why Francesca should chastise Mr. +Macdonald for the good-humoured sins of Mr. Anstruther and Miss Ardmore; +yet she does so, nevertheless. + +The history of these chastisements she recounts in the nightly half-hour +which she spends with me when I am endeavouring to compose myself for +sleep. Francesca is fluent at all times, but once seated on the foot of +my bed she becomes eloquent! + +"It all began with his saying--" + +This is her perennial introduction, and I respond as invariably, "What +began?" + +"Oh, to-day's argument with Mr. Macdonald. It was a literary quarrel +this afternoon." + +"'Fools rush in--'" I quoted. + +"There is a good deal of nonsense in that old saw," she interrupted; "at +all events, the most foolish fools I have ever known stayed still and +didn't do anything. Rushing shows a certain movement of the mind, +even if it is in the wrong direction. However, Mr. Macdonald is both +opinionated and dogmatic, but his worst enemy could never call him a +fool." + +"I didn't allude to Mr. Macdonald." + +"Don't you suppose I know to whom you alluded, dear? Is not your style +so simple, frank, and direct that a wayfaring girl can read it and not +err therein? No, I am not sitting on your feet, and it is not time to go +to sleep; I wonder you do not tire of making those futile protests. As a +matter of fact, we began this literary discussion yesterday morning, +but were interrupted; and knowing that it was sure to come up again, +I prepared for it with Salemina. She furnished the ammunition, so to +speak, and I fired the guns." + +"You always make so much noise with blank cartridges I wonder you ever +bother about real shot," I remarked. + +"Penelope, how can you abuse me when I am in trouble? Well, Mr. +Macdonald was prating, as usual, about the antiquity of Scotland and its +aeons of stirring history. I am so weary of the venerableness of this +country. How old will it have to be, I wonder, before it gets used +to it? If it's the province of art to conceal art, it ought to be the +province of age to conceal age, and it generally is. 'Everything doesn't +improve with years,' I observed sententiously. + +"'For instance?' he inquired. + +"Of course you know how that question affected me! How I do dislike +an appetite for specific details! It is simply paralysing to a good +conversation. Do you remember that silly game in which some one points +a stick at you and says, 'Beast, bird, or fish,--BEAST!' and you have +to name one while he counts ten? If a beast has been requested, you can +think of one fish and two birds, but no beast. If he says 'FISH,' all +the beasts in the universe stalk through your memory, but not one finny, +sealy, swimming thing! Well, that is the effect of 'For instance?' on my +faculties. So I stumbled a bit, and succeeded in recalling, as objects +which do not improve with age, mushrooms, women, and chickens, and he +was obliged to agree with me, which nearly killed him. Then I said that +although America is so fresh and blooming that people persist in calling +it young, it is much older than it appears to the superficial eye. There +is no real propriety in dating us as a nation from the Declaration of +Independence in 1776, I said, nor even from the landing of the Pilgrims +in 1620; nor, for that matter, from Columbus's discovery in 1492. It's +my opinion, I asserted, that some of us had been there thousands of +years before, but nobody had had the sense to discover us. We couldn't +discover ourselves,--though if we could have foreseen how the sere and +yellow nations of the earth would taunt us with youth and inexperience, +we should have had to do something desperate!" + +"That theory must have been very convincing to the philosophic Scots +mind," I interjected. + +"It was; even Mr. Macdonald thought it ingenious. 'And so,' I went on, +'we were alive and awake and beginning to make history when you Scots +were only bare-legged savages roaming over the hills and stealing +cattle. It was a very bad habit of yours, that cattle-stealing, and one +which you kept up too long.' + +"'No worse a sin than your stealing land from the Indians,' he said. + +"'Oh yes,' I answered, 'because it was a smaller one! Yours was a vice, +and ours a sin; or I mean it would have been a sin had we done it; but +in reality we didn't steal land; we just TOOK it, reserving plenty for +the Indians to play about on; and for every hunting-ground we took away +we gave them in exchange a serviceable plough, or a school, or a nice +Indian agent, or something. That was land-grabbing, if you like, but +it is a habit you Britishers have still, while we gave it up when we +reached years of discretion.'" + +"This is very illuminating," I interrupted, now thoroughly wide awake, +"but it isn't my idea of a literary discussion." + +"I am coming to that," she responded. "It was just at this point that, +goaded into secret fury by my innocent speech about cattle-stealing, he +began to belittle American literature, the poetry especially. Of course +he waxed eloquent about the royal line of poet-kings that had made his +country famous, and said the people who could claim Shakespeare had +reason to be the proudest nation on earth. 'Doubtless,' I said. 'But do +you mean to say that Scotland has any nearer claim upon Shakespeare than +we have? I do not now allude to the fact that in the large sense he is +the common property of the English-speaking world' (Salemina told me to +say that), 'but Shakespeare died in 1616, and the union of Scotland with +England didn't come about till 1707, nearly a century afterwards. You +really haven't anything to do with him! But as for us, we didn't leave +England until 1620, when Shakespeare had been perfectly dead four years. +We took very good care not to come away too soon. Chaucer and Spenser +were dead too, and we had nothing to stay for!'" + +I was obliged to relax here and give vent to a burst of merriment at +Francesca's absurdities. + +"I could see that he had never regarded the matter in that light +before," she went on gaily, encouraged by my laughter, "but he braced +himself for the conflict, and said 'I wonder that you didn't stay a +little longer while you were about it. Milton and Ben Jonson were still +alive; Bacon's Novum Organum was just coming out; and in thirty or forty +years you could have had L'Allegro, Il Penseroso and Paradise Lost; +Newton's Principia, too, in 1687. Perhaps these were all too serious and +heavy for your national taste; still one sometimes likes to claim things +one cannot fully appreciate. And then, too, if you had once begun to +stay, waiting for the great things to happen and the great books to +be written, you would never have gone, for there would still have been +Browning, Tennyson, and Swinburne to delay you.' + +"'If we couldn't stay to see out your great bards, we certainly couldn't +afford to remain and welcome your minor ones,' I answered frigidly; 'but +we wanted to be well out of the way before England united with Scotland, +knowing that if we were uncomfortable as things were, it would be a good +deal worse after the Union; and we had to come home anyway, and start +our own poets. Emerson, Whittier, Longfellow, Holmes, and Lowell had to +be born.' + +"'I suppose they had to be if you had set your mind on it,' he said, +'though personally I could have spared one or two on that roll of +honour.' + +"'Very probably,' I remarked, as thoroughly angry now as he intended I +should be. 'We cannot expect you to appreciate all the American poets; +indeed, you cannot appreciate all of your own, for the same nation +doesn't always furnish the writers and the readers. Take your precious +Browning, for example! There are hundreds of Browning Clubs in America, +and I never heard of a single one in Scotland.' + +"'No,' he retorted, 'I dare say; but there is a good deal in belonging +to a people who can understand him without clubs!'" + +"O Francesca!" I exclaimed, sitting bolt upright among my pillows. "How +could you give him that chance! How COULD you! What did you say?" + +"I said nothing," she replied mysteriously. "I did something much more +to the point,--I cried!" + +"CRIED?" + +"Yes, cried; not rivers and freshets of woe, but small brooks and +streamlets of helpless mortification." + +"What did he do then?" + +"Why do you say 'do'?" + +"Oh, I mean 'say,' of course. Don't trifle; go on. What did he say +then?" + +"There are some things too dreadful to describe," she answered, and +wrapping her Italian blanket majestically about her she retired to her +own apartment, shooting one enigmatical glance at me as she closed the +door. + +That glance puzzled me for some time after she left the room. It was as +expressive and interesting a beam as ever darted from a woman's eye. +The combination of elements involved in it, if an abstract thing may be +conceived as existing in component parts, was something like this:-- + +One-half, mystery. One-eighth, triumph. One-eighth, amusement. +One-sixteenth, pride. One-sixteenth, shame. One-sixteenth, desire to +confess. One-sixteenth, determination to conceal. + +And all these delicate, complex emotions played together in a circle +of arching eyebrow, curving lip, and tremulous chin,--played together, +mingling and melting into one another like fire and snow; bewildering, +mystifying, enchanting the beholder! + +If Ronald Macdonald did--I am a woman, but, for one, I can hardly blame +him! + + + +Chapter XXII. Francesca entertains the green-eyed monster. + + + + '"O has he chosen a bonny bride, + An' has he clean forgotten me?" + An' sighing said that gay ladye, + "I would I were in my ain countrie!"' + +Lord Beichan. + + + +It rained in torrents; Salemina was darning stockings in the inglenook +at Bide-a-Wee Cottage, and I was reading her a Scotch letter which +Francesca and I had concocted the evening before. I proposed sending the +document to certain chosen spirits in our own country, who were pleased +to be facetious concerning our devotion to Scotland. It contained, in +sooth, little that was new, and still less that was true, for we were +confined to a very small vocabulary which we were obliged to supplement +now and then by a dip into Burns and Allan Ramsay. + +Here is the letter:-- + +Bide-a-Wee Cottage, Pettybaw, +East Neuk o' Fife. + + +To my trusty fieres, + +Mony's the time I hae ettled to send ye a screed, but there was aye +something that cam' i' the gait. It wisna that I couldna be fashed, for +aften hae I thocht o' ye and my hairt has been wi' ye mony's the day. +There's no' muckle fowk frae Ameriky hereawa; they're a' jist Fife +bodies, and a lass canna get her tongue roun' their thrapple-taxin' +words ava', so it's like I may een drap a' the sweetness o' my good +mither-tongue. + +'Tis a dulefu' nicht, and an awfu' blash is ragin' wi'oot. Fanny's awa' +at the gowff rinnin' aboot wi' a bag o' sticks after a wee bit ba', and +Sally and I are hame by oor lane. Laith will the lassie be to weet her +bonny shoon, but lang ere the play'll be ower she'll wat her hat aboon. +A gust o' win' is skirlin' the noo, and as we luik ower the faem, the +haar is risin', weetin' the green swaird wi' misty shoo'rs. + +Yestreen was a calm simmer gloamin', sae sweet an' bonnie that when the +sun was sinkin' doon ower Pettybaw Sands we daundered ower the muir. +As we cam' through the scented birks, we saw a trottin' burnie wimplin' +'neath the white-blossomed slaes and hirplin' doon the hillside; +an' while a herd-laddie lilted ower the fernie brae, a cushat cooed +leesomely doon i' the dale. We pit aff oor shoon, sae blithe were we, +kilted oor coats a little aboon the knee, and paidilt i' the burn, +gettin' geyan weet the while. Then Sally pu'd the gowans wat wi' dew an' +twined her bree wi' tasselled broom, while I had a wee crackie wi' Tibby +Buchan, the flesher's dochter frae Auld Reekie. Tibby's nae giglet gawky +like the lave, ye ken,--she's a sonsie maid, as sweet as ony hinny pear, +wi' her twa pawky een an' her cockernony snooded up fu' sleek. + +We were unco gleg to win hame when a' this was dune, an' after steekin' +the door, to sit an' birsle oor taes at the bit blaze. Mickle thocht we +o' the gentles ayont the sea, an' sair grat we for a' frien's we kent +lang syne in oor ain countree. + +Late at nicht, Fanny, the bonny gypsy, cam' ben the hoose an' tirled at +the pin of oor bigly bower door, speirin' for baps and bannocks. + +"Hoots, lassie!" cried oot Sally, "th' auld carline i' the kitchen is i' +her box-bed, an' weel aneuch ye ken is lang syne cuddled doon." + +"Oo ay!" said Fanny, strikin' her curly pow, "then fetch me parritch, +an' dinna be lang wi' them, for I've lickit a Pettybaw lad at the gowff, +an' I could eat twa guid jints o' beef gin I had them!" + +"Losh girl," said I, "gie ower makin' sic a mickle din. Ye ken verra +weel ye'll get nae parritch the nicht. I'll rin and fetch ye a 'piece' +to stap awee the soun'." + +"Blethers an' havers!" cried Fanny, but she blinkit bonnily the while, +an' when the tea was weel maskit, she smoored her wrath an' stappit her +mooth wi' a bit o' oaten cake. We aye keep that i' the hoose, for th' +auld servant-body is geyan bad at the cookin', an' she's sae dour an' +dowie that to speak but till her we daur hardly mint. + +In sic divairsions pass the lang simmer days in braid Scotland, but I +canna write mair the nicht, for 'tis the wee sma' hours ayont the twal'. + +Like th' auld wife's parrot, 'we dinna speak muckle, but we're deevils +to think,' an' we're aye thinkin' aboot ye. An' noo I maun leave ye to +mak' what ye can oot o' this, for I jalouse it'll pass ye to untaukle +the whole hypothec. + +Fair fa' ye a'! Lang may yer lum reek, an' may prosperity attend oor +clan! + +Aye your gude frien', + +Penelope Hamilton. + + +"It may be very fine," remarked Salemina judicially, "though I cannot +understand more than half of it." + +"That would also be true of Browning," I replied. "Don't you love to see +great ideas looming through a mist of words?" + +"The words are misty enough in this case," she said, "and I do wish you +would not tell the world that I paddle in the burn, or 'twine my bree +wi' tasselled broom.' I'm too old to be made ridiculous." + +"Nobody will believe it," said Francesca, appearing in the doorway. +"They will know it is only Penelope's havering," and with this +undeserved scoff, she took her mashie and went golfing--not on the +links, on this occasion, but in our microscopic sitting-room. It is +twelve feet square, and holds a tiny piano, desk, centre-table, sofa, +and chairs, but the spot between the fire-place and the table is +Francesca's favourite 'putting-green.' She wishes to become more deadly +in the matter of approaches, and thinks her tee-shots weak; so these two +deficiencies she is trying to make good by home practice in inclement +weather. She turns a tumbler on its side on the floor, and 'putts' the +ball into it, or at it, as the case may be, from the opposite side +of the room. It is excellent discipline, and as the tumblers are +inexpensive the breakage really does not matter. Whenever Miss Grieve +hears the shivering of glass, she murmurs, not without reason, 'It is +not for the knowing what they will be doing next.' + +"Penelope, has it ever occurred to you that Elizabeth Ardmore is +seriously interested in Mr. Macdonald?" + +Salemina propounded this question to me with the same innocence that a +babe would display in placing a lighted fuse beside a dynamite bomb. + +Francesca naturally heard the remark,--although it was addressed to +me,--pricked up her ears, and missed the tumbler by several feet. + +It was a simple inquiry, but as I look back upon it from the safe ground +of subsequent knowledge I perceive that it had a certain amount of +influence upon Francesca's history. The suggestion would have carried +no weight with me for two reasons. In the first place, Salemina is +far-sighted. If objects are located at some distance from her, she sees +them clearly; but if they are under her very nose she overlooks them +altogether, unless they are sufficiently fragrant or audible to address +other senses. This physical peculiarity she carries over into her mental +processes. Her impression of the Disruption movement, for example, would +be lively and distinct, but her perception of a contemporary lover's +quarrel (particularly if it were fought at her own apron-strings) would +be singularly vague. If she suggested, therefore, that Elizabeth Ardmore +was interested in Mr. Beresford, who is the rightful captive of my bow +and spear, I should be perfectly calm. + +My second reason for comfortable indifference is that frequently in +novels, and always in plays, the heroine is instigated to violent +jealousy by insinuations of this sort, usually conveyed by the villain +of the piece, male or female. I have seen this happen so often in the +modern drama that it has long since ceased to be convincing; but though +Francesca has witnessed scores of plays and read hundreds of novels, +it did not apparently strike her as a theatrical or literary suggestion +that Lady Ardmore's daughter should be in love with Mr. Macdonald. The +effect of the new point of view was most salutary, on the whole. She had +come to think herself the only prominent figure in the Reverend Ronald's +landscape, and anything more impertinent than her tone with him (unless +it is his with her) I certainly never heard. This criticism, however, +relates only to their public performances, and I have long suspected +that their private conversations are of a kindlier character. When it +occurred to her that he might simply be sharpening his mental sword on +her steel, but that his heart had at last wandered into a more genial +climate than she had ever provided for it, she softened unconsciously; +the Scotsman and the American receded into a truer perspective, and the +man and the woman approached each other with dangerous nearness. + +"What shall we do if Francesca and Mr. Macdonald really fall in love +with each other?" asked Salemina, when Francesca had gone into the hall +to try long drives. (There is a good deal of excitement in this, as +Miss Grieve has to cross the passage on her way from the kitchen to +the china-closet, and thus often serves as a reluctant 'hazard' or +'bunker.') + +"Do you mean what should we have done?" I queried. + +"Nonsense, don't be captious! It can't be too late yet. They have known +each other only a little over two months; when would you have had me +interfere, pray?" + +"It depends upon what you expect to accomplish. If you wish to stop +the marriage, interfere in a fortnight or so; if you wish to prevent +an engagement, speak--well, say to-morrow; if, however, you didn't wish +them to fall in love with each other, you should have kept one of them +away from Lady Baird's dinner." + +"I could have waited a trifle longer than that," argued Salemina, "for +you remember how badly they got on at first." + +"I remember you thought so," I responded dryly; "but I believe Mr. +Macdonald has been interested in Francesca from the outset, partly +because her beauty and vivacity attracted him, partly because he could +keep her in order only by putting his whole mind upon her. On his side, +he has succeeded in piquing her into thinking of him continually, though +solely, as she fancies, for the purpose of crossing swords with him. +If they ever drop their weapons for an instant, and allow the din of +warfare to subside so that they can listen to their own heart-beats, +they will discover that they love each other to distraction." + +"Ye ken mair than's in the catecheesm," remarked Salemina, yawning a +little as she put away her darning-ball. "It is pathetic to see you +waste your time painting mediocre pictures, when as a lecturer upon love +you could instruct your thousands." + +"The thousands would never satisfy me," I retorted, "so long as you +remained uninstructed, for in your single person you would so swell the +sum of human ignorance on that subject that my teaching would be for +ever in vain." + +"Very clever indeed! Well, what will Mr. Monroe say to me when I return +to New York without his daughter, or with his son-in-law?" + +"He has never denied Francesca anything in her life; why should he draw +the line at a Scotsman? I am much more concerned about Mr. Macdonald's +congregation." + +"I am not anxious about that," said Salemina loyally. "Francesca would +be the life of an Inchcaldy parish." + +"I dare say," I observed, "but she might be the death of the pastor." + +"I am ashamed of you, Penelope; or I should be if you meant what you +say. She can make the people love her if she tries; when did she ever +fail at that? But with Mr. Macdonald's talent, to say nothing of his +family connections, he is sure to get a church in Edinburgh in a few +years if he wishes. Undoubtedly, it would not be a great match in a +money sense. I suppose he has a manse and three or four hundred pounds a +year." + +"That sum would do nicely for cabs." + +"Penelope, you are flippant!" + +"I don't mean it, dear; it's only for fun; and it would be so absurd +if we should leave Francesca over here as the presiding genius of an +Inchcaldy parsonage--I mean a manse!" + +"It isn't as if she were penniless," continued Salemina; "she has +fortune enough to assure her own independence, and not enough to +threaten his--the ideal amount. I hardly think the good Lord's first +intention was to make her a minister's wife, but He knows very well that +Love is a master architect. Francesca is full of beautiful possibilities +if Mr. Macdonald is the man to bring them out, and I am inclined to +think he is." + +"He has brought out impishness so far," I objected. + +"The impishness is transitory," she returned, "and I am speaking of +permanent qualities. His is the stronger and more serious nature, +Francesca's the sweeter and more flexible. He will be the oak-tree, and +she will be the sunshine playing in the branches." + +"Salemina, dear," I said penitently, kissing her grey hair, "I +apologise: you are not absolutely ignorant about Love, after all, when +you call him the master architect; and that is very lovely and very true +about the oak-tree and the sunshine." + + + +Chapter XXIII. Ballad revels at Rowardennan. + + + + '"Love, I maun gang to Edinbrugh, + Love, I maun gang an' leave thee!" + She sighed right sair, an' said nae mair + But "O gin I were wi' ye!"' + +Andrew Lammie. + + + +Jean Dalziel came to visit us a week ago, and has put new life into our +little circle. I suppose it was playing 'Sir Patrick Spens' that set us +thinking about it, for one warm, idle day when we were all in the +Glen we began a series of ballad-revels, in which each of us assumed +a favourite character. The choice induced so much argument and +disagreement that Mr. Beresford was at last appointed head of the clan; +and having announced himself formally as The Mackintosh, he was placed +on the summit of a hastily arranged pyramidal cairn. He was given an ash +wand and a rowan-tree sword; and then, according to ancient custom, his +pedigree and the exploits of his ancestors were recounted, and he was +exhorted to emulate their example. Now it seems that a Highland chief +of the olden time, being as absolute in his patriarchal authority as any +prince, had a corresponding number of officers attached to his person. +He had a bodyguard, who fought around him in battle, and independent of +this he had a staff of officers who accompanied him wherever he went. +These our chief proceeded to appoint as follows:-- + +Henchman, Ronald Macdonald; bard, Penelope Hamilton; spokesman or fool, +Robin Anstruther; sword-bearer, Francesca Monroe; piper, Salemina; +piper's attendant, Elizabeth Ardmore; baggage gillie, Jean Dalziel; +running footman, Ralph; bridle gillie, Jamie; ford gillie, Miss Grieve. +The ford gillie carries the chief across fords only, and there are no +fords in the vicinity; so Mr. Beresford, not liking to leave a member +of our household out of office, thought this the best post for Calamity +Jane. + +With The Mackintosh on his pyramidal cairn matters went very much +better, and at Jamie's instigation we began to hold rehearsals for +certain festivities at Rowardennan; for as Jamie's birthday fell on the +eve of the Queen's Jubilee, there was to be a gay party at the Castle. + +All this occurred days ago, and yesterday evening the ballad-revels came +off, and Rowardennan was a scene of great pageant and splendour. Lady +Ardmore, dressed as the Lady of Inverleith, received the guests, +and there were all manner of tableaux, and ballads in costume, and +pantomimes, and a grand march by the clan, in which we appeared in our +chosen roles. + +Salemina was Lady Maisry--she whom all the lords of the north countrie +came wooing. + + 'But a' that they could say to her, + Her answer still was "Na."' + +And again:-- + + '"O haud your tongues, young men," she said, + "And think nae mair on me!"' + +Mr. Beresford was Lord Beichan, and I was Shusy Pye + + 'Lord Beichan was a Christian born, + And such resolved to live and dee, + So he was ta'en by a savage Moor, + Who treated him right cruellie. + + The Moor he had an only daughter, + The damsel's name was Shusy Pye; + And ilka day as she took the air + Lord Beichan's prison she pass'd by.' + +Elizabeth Ardmore was Leezie Lindsay, who kilted her coats o' green +satin to the knee and was aff to the Hielands so expeditiously when her +lover declared himself to be 'Lord Ronald Macdonald, a chieftain of high +degree.' + +Francesca was Mary Ambree. + + 'When captaines couragious, whom death cold not daunte, + Did march to the siege of the citty of Gaunt, + They mustred their souldiers by two and by three, + And the foremost in battle was Mary Ambree. + + When the brave sergeant-major was slaine in her sight + Who was her true lover, her joy and delight, + Because he was slaine most treacherouslie, + Then vow'd to avenge him Mary Ambree.' + +Brenda Macrae from Pettybaw House was Fairly Fair; Jamie, Sir Patrick +Spens; Ralph, King Alexander of Dunfermline; Mr. Anstruther, Bonnie +Glenlogie, 'the flower o' them a';' Mr. Macdonald and Miss Dalziel, +Young Hynde Horn and the king's daughter Jean respectively. + + '"Oh, it's Hynde Horn fair, and it's Hynde Horn free; + Oh, where were you born, and in what countrie?" + "In a far distant countrie I was born; + But of home and friends I am quite forlorn." + + Oh, it's seven long years he served the king, + But wages from him he ne'er got a thing; + Oh, it's seven long years he served, I ween, + And all for love of the king's daughter Jean.' + +It is not to be supposed that all this went off without any of the +difficulties and heart-burnings that are incident to things dramatic. +When Elizabeth Ardmore chose to be Leezie Lindsay, she asked me to sing +the ballad behind the scenes. Mr. Beresford naturally thought that Mr. +Macdonald would take the opposite part in the tableau, inasmuch as the +hero bears his name; but he positively declined to play Lord Ronald +Macdonald, and said it was altogether too personal. + +Mr. Anstruther was rather disagreeable at the beginning, and upbraided +Miss Dalziel for offering to be the king's daughter Jean to Mr. +Macdonald's Hynde Horn, when she knew very well he wanted her for Ladye +Jeanie in Glenlogie. (She had meantime confided to me that nothing could +induce her to appear in Glenlogie; it was far too personal.) + +Mr. Macdonald offended Francesca by sending her his cast-off gown and +begging her to be Sir Patrick Spens; and she was still more gloomy (so I +imagined) because he had not proffered his six feet of manly beauty for +the part of the captain in Mary Ambree, when the only other person to +take it was Jamie's tutor. He is an Oxford man and a delightful person, +but very bow-legged; added to that, by the time the rehearsals had +ended she had been obliged to beg him to love some one more worthy +than herself, and did not wish to appear in the same tableau with him, +feeling that it was much too personal. + +When the eventful hour came, yesterday, Willie and I were the only +actors really willing to take lovers' parts, save Jamie and Ralph, who +were but too anxious to play all the characters, whatever their age, +sex, colour, or relations. But the guests knew nothing of these +trivial disagreements, and at ten o'clock last night it would have been +difficult to match Rowardennan Castle for a scene of beauty and revelry. +Everything went merrily till we came to Hynde Horn, the concluding +tableau, and the most effective and elaborate one on the programme. +At the very last moment, when the opening scene was nearly ready, Jean +Dalziel fell down a secret staircase that led from the tapestry chamber +into Lady Ardmore's boudoir, where the rest of us were dressing. It was +a short flight of steps, but as she held a candle, and was carrying her +costume, she fell awkwardly, spraining her wrist and ankle. Finding +that she was not maimed for life, Lady Ardmore turned with comical and +unsympathetic haste to Francesca, so completely do amateur theatricals +dry the milk of kindness in the human breast. + +"Put on these clothes at once," she said imperiously, knowing nothing of +the volcanoes beneath the surface. "Hynde Horn is already on the stage, +and somebody must be Jean. Take care of Miss Dalziel, girls, and ring +for more maids. Helene, come and dress Miss Monroe; put on her slippers +while I lace her gown; run and fetch more jewels,--more still,--she can +carry off any number; not any rouge, Helene--she has too much colour +now; pull the frock more off the shoulders--it's a pity to cover an +inch of them; pile her hair higher--here, take my diamond tiara, child; +hurry, Helene, fetch the silver cup and the cake--no, they are on the +stage; take her train, Helene. Miss Hamilton, run and open the doors +ahead of them, please. I won't go down for this tableau. I'll put Miss +Dalziel right, and then I'll slip into the drawing-room, to be ready for +the guests when they come in." + +We hurried breathlessly through an interminable series of rooms and +corridors. I gave the signal to Mr. Beresford, who was nervously waiting +for it in the wings, and the curtain went up on Hynde Horn disguised as +the auld beggar man at the king's gate. Mr. Beresford was reading the +ballad, and we took up the tableaux at the point where Hynde Horn has +come from a far countrie to see why the diamonds in the ring given him +by his own true love have grown pale and wan. He hears that the king's +daughter Jean has been married to a knight these nine days past. + + 'But unto him a wife the bride winna be, + For love of Hynde Horn, far over the sea.' + +He therefore borrows the old beggar's garments and hobbles to the king's +palace, where he petitions the porter for a cup of wine and a bit of +cake to be handed him by the fair bride herself. + + '"Good porter, I pray, for Saints Peter and Paul, + And for sake of the Saviour who died for us all, + For one cup of wine and one bit of bread, + To an auld man with travel and hunger bestead. + + And ask the fair bride, for the sake of Hynde Horn, + To hand them to me so sadly forlorn." + Then the porter for pity the message convey'd, + And told the fair bride all the beggar man said.' + +The curtain went up again. The porter, moved to pity, has gone to give +the message to his lady. Hynde Horn is watching the staircase at the +rear of the stage, his heart in his eyes. The tapestries that hide it +are drawn, and there stands the king's daughter, who tripped down the +stair-- + + 'And in her fair hands did lovingly bear + A cup of red wine, and a farle of cake, + To give the old man for loved Hynde Horn's sake.' + +The hero of the ballad, who had not seen his true love for seven long +years, could not have been more amazed at the change in her than was +Ronald Macdonald at the sight of the flushed, excited, almost tearful +king's daughter on the staircase, Lady Ardmore's diamonds flashing from +her crimson satin gown, Lady Ardmore's rubies glowing on her white +arms and throat; not Miss Dalziel, as had been arranged, but Francesca, +rebellious, reluctant, embarrassed, angrily beautiful and beautifully +angry! + +In the next scene Hynde Horn has drained the cup and dropped the ring +into it. + + '"Oh, found you that ring by sea or on land, + Or got you that ring off a dead man's hand?" + "Oh, I found not that ring by sea or on land, + But I got that ring from a fair lady's hand. + + As a pledge of true love she gave it to me, + Full seven years ago as I sail'd o'er the sea; + But now that the diamonds are changed in their hue, + I know that my love has to me proved untrue."' + +I never saw a prettier picture of sweet, tremulous womanhood, a more +enchanting, breathing image of fidelity, than Francesca looked as Mr. +Beresford read:-- + + '"Oh, I will cast off my gay costly gown, + And follow thee on from town unto town; + And I will take the gold kaims from my hair, + And follow my true love for evermair."' + +Whereupon Hynde Horn lets his beggar weeds fall, and shines there the +foremost and noblest of all the king's companie as he says:-- + + '"You need not cast off your gay costly gown, + To follow me on from town unto town; + You need not take the gold kaims from your hair, + For Hynde Horn has gold enough and to spare." + + Then the bridegrooms were changed, and the lady re-wed + To Hynde Horn thus come back, like one from the dead.' + +There is no doubt that this tableau gained the success of the evening, +and the participants in it should have modestly and gratefully received +the choruses of congratulation that were ready to be offered during +the supper and dance that followed. Instead of that, what happened? +Francesca drove home with Miss Dalziel before the quadrille d'honneur, +and when Willie bade me good night at the gate in the loaning, he said, +"I shall not be early to-morrow, dear. I am going to see Macdonald off." + +"Off!" I exclaimed. "Where is he going?" + +"Only to Edinburgh and London, to stay till the last of next week." + +"But we may have left Pettybaw by that time." + +"Of course; that is probably what he has in mind. But let me tell you +this, Penelope: Macdonald is fathoms deep in love with Francesca, and if +she trifles with him she shall know what I think of her!" + +"And let me tell you this, sir: Francesca is fathoms deep in love with +Ronald Macdonald, little as you suspect it, and if he trifles with her +he shall know what I think of him!" + + + +Chapter XXIV. Old songs and modern instances. + + + + 'He set her on a coal-black steed, + Himself lap on behind her, + An' he's awa' to the Hieland hills + Whare her frien's they canna find her.' + +Rob Roy. + + + +The occupants of Bide-a-Wee Cottage awoke in anything but a Jubilee +humour, next day. Willie had intended to come at nine, but of course +did not appear. Francesca took her breakfast in bed, and came listlessly +into the sitting-room at ten o'clock, looking like a ghost. Jean's ankle +was much better--the sprain proved to be not even a strain--but her +wrist was painful. It was drizzling, too, and we had promised Miss +Ardmore and Miss Macrae to aid with the last Jubilee decorations, the +distribution of medals at the church, and the children's games and tea +on the links in the afternoon. + +We have determined not to desert our beloved Pettybaw for the metropolis +on this great day, but to celebrate it with the dear fowk o' Fife who +had grown to be a part of our lives. + +Bide-a-Wee Cottage does not occupy an imposing position in the +landscape, and the choice of art fabrics at the Pettybaw draper's is +small, but the moment it should stop raining we were intending to carry +out a dazzling scheme of decoration that would proclaim our affectionate +respect for the 'little lady in black' on her Diamond Jubilee. But would +it stop raining?--that was the question. The draper wasna certain that +so licht a shoo'r could richtly be called rain. The village weans +were yearning for the hour to arrive when they might sit on the wet +golf-course and have tea; manifestly, therefore, it could not be a bad +day for Scotland; but if it should grow worse, what would become of our +mammoth subscription bonfire on Pettybaw Law--the bonfire that Brenda +Macrae was to light, as the lady of the manor? + +There were no deputations to request the honour of Miss Macrae's +distinguished services on this occasion; that is not the way the +self-respecting villager comports himself in Fifeshire. The chairman of +the local committee, a respectable gardener, called upon Miss Macrae +at Pettybaw House, and said, "I'm sent to tell ye ye're to have the +pleasure an' the honour of lichtin' the bonfire the nicht! Ay, it's a +grand chance ye're havin', miss, ye'll remember it as long as ye live, +I'm thinkin'!" + +When I complimented this rugged soul on his decoration of the triumphal +arch under which the school-children were to pass, I said, "I think if +her Majesty could see it, she would be pleased with our village to-day, +James." + +"Ay, ye're richt, miss," he replied complacently. "She'd see that +Inchcawdy canna compeer wi' us; we've patronised her weel in Pettybaw!" + +Truly, as Stevenson says, 'he who goes fishing among the Scots peasantry +with condescension for a bait will have an empty basket by evening.' + +At eleven o'clock a boy arrived at Bide-a-Wee with an +interesting-looking package, which I promptly opened. That dear foolish +lover of mine (whose foolishness is one of the most adorable things +about him) makes me only two visits a day, and is therefore constrained +to send me some reminder of himself in the intervening hours, or +minutes--a book, a flower, or a note. Uncovering the pretty box, I found +a long, slender--something--of sparkling silver. + +"What is it?" I exclaimed, holding it up. "It is too long and not +wide enough for a paper-knife, although it would be famous for cutting +magazines. Is it a baton? Where did Willie find it, and what can it be? +There is something engraved on one side, something that looks like birds +on a twig,--yes, three little birds; and see the lovely cairngorm set +in the end! Oh, it has words cut in it: 'To Jean: From Hynde +Horn'--Goodness me! I've opened Miss Dalziel's package!" + +Francesca made a sudden swooping motion, and caught box, cover, and +contents in her arms. + +"It is mine! I know it is mine!" she cried. "You really ought not to +claim everything that is sent to the house, Penelope--as if nobody +had any friends or presents but you!" and she rushed upstairs like a +whirlwind. + +I examined the outside wrapper, lying on the floor, and found, to my +chagrin, that it did bear Miss Monroe's name, somewhat blotted by the +rain; but if the box were addressed to her, why was the silver thing +inscribed to Miss Dalziel? Well, Francesca would explain the mystery +within the hour, unless she had become a changed being. + +Fifteen minutes passed. Salemina was making Jubilee sandwiches at +Pettybaw House, Miss Dalziel was asleep in her room, I was being +devoured slowly by curiosity, when Francesca came down without a word, +walked out of the front door, went up to the main street, and entered +the village post-office without so much as a backward glance. She was +a changed being, then! I might as well be living in a Gaboriau novel, I +thought, and went up into my little painting and writing room to address +a programme of the Pettybaw celebration to Lady Baird, watch for the +glimpse of Willie coming down the loaning, and see if I could discover +where Francesca went from the post-office. + +Sitting down by my desk, I could find neither my wax nor my silver +candlestick, my scissors nor my ball of twine. Plainly Francesca had +been on one of her borrowing tours; and she had left an additional trace +of herself--if one were needed--in a book of old Scottish ballads, open +at 'Hynde Horn.' I glanced at it idly while I was waiting for her to +return. I was not familiar with the opening verses, and these were the +first lines that met my eye:-- + + 'Oh, he gave to his love a silver wand, + Her sceptre of rule over fair Scotland; + With three singing laverocks set thereon + For to mind her of him when he was gone. + + And his love gave to him a gay gold ring + With three shining diamonds set therein; + Oh, his love gave to him this gay gold ring, + Of virtue and value above all thing.' + +A light dawned upon me! The silver mystery, then, was intended for a +wand--and a very pretty way of making love to an American girl, too, to +call it a 'sceptre of rule over fair Scotland'; and the three birds were +three singing laverocks 'to mind her of him when he was gone'! + +But the real Hynde Horn in the dear old ballad had a truelove who was +not captious and capricious and cold like Francesca. His love gave him a +gay gold ring-- + + 'Of virtue and value above all thing.' + +Yet stay: behind the ballad book flung heedlessly on my desk was--what +should it be but the little morocco case, empty now, in which our +Francesca keeps her dead mother's engagement ring--the mother who died +when she was a wee child. Truly a very pretty modern ballad to be sung +in these unromantic, degenerate days! + +Francesca came in at the door behind me, saw her secret reflected in my +tell-tale face, saw the sympathetic moisture in my eyes, and, flinging +herself into my willing arms, burst into tears. + +"O Pen, dear, dear Pen, I am so miserable and so happy; so afraid that +he won't come back, so frightened for fear that he will! I sent him away +because there were so many lions in the path, and I didn't know how +to slay them. I thought of my f-father; I thought of my c-c-country. I +didn't want to live with him in Scotland, I knew that I couldn't live +without him in America, and there I was! I didn't think I was s-suited +to a minister, and I am not; but oh! this p-particular minister is so +s-suited to me!" and she threw herself on the sofa and buried her head +in the cushions. + +She was so absurd even in her grief that I had hard work to keep from +smiling. + +"Let us talk about the lions," I said soothingly. "But when did the +trouble begin? When did he speak to you?" + +"After the tableau last night; but of course there had been +other--other--times--and things." + +"Of course. Well?" + +"He had told me a week before that he should go away for a while, that +it made him too wretched to stay here just now; and I suppose that was +when he got the silver wand ready for me. It was meant for the Jean of +the poem, you know. Of course he would not put my own name on a gift +like that." + +"You don't think he had it made for Jean Dalziel in the first place?"--I +asked this, thinking she needed some sort of tonic in her relaxed +condition. + +"You know him better than that, Penelope! I am ashamed of you! We had +read Hynde Horn together ages before Jean Dalziel came; but I imagine, +when we came to acting the lines, he thought it would be better to have +some other king's daughter; that is, that it would be less personal. +And I never, never would have been in the tableau, if I had dared refuse +Lady Ardmore, or could have explained; but I had no time to think. And +then, naturally, he thought by me being there as the king's daughter +that--that--the lions were slain, you know; instead of which they were +roaring so that I could hardly hear the orchestra." + +"Francesca, look me in the eye! Do--you--love him?" + +"Love him? I adore him!" she exclaimed in good clear decisive English, +as she rose impetuously and paced up and down in front of the sofa. "But +in the first place there is the difference in nationality." + +"I have no patience with you. One would think he was a Turk, an +Esquimau, or a cannibal. He is white, he speaks English, and he believes +in the Christian religion. The idea of calling such a man a foreigner!" + +"Oh, it didn't prevent me from loving him," she confessed, "but I +thought at first it would be unpatriotic to marry him." + +"Did you think Columbia could not spare you even as a rare specimen to +be used for exhibition purposes?" I asked wickedly. + +"You know I am not so conceited as that! No," she continued ingenuously, +"I feared that if I accepted him it would look, over here, as if the +home-supply of husbands were of inferior quality; and then we had such +disagreeable discussions at the beginning, I simply could not bear +to leave my nice new free country, and ally myself with his aeons of +tiresome history. But it came to me in the night, a week ago, that +after all I should hate a man who didn't love his Fatherland; and in +the illumination of that new idea Ronald's character assumed a different +outline in my mind. How could he love America when he had never seen it? +How could I convince him that American women are the most charming in +the world in any better way than by letting him live under the same roof +with a good example? How could I expect him to let me love my country +best unless I permitted him to love his best?" + +"You needn't offer so many apologies for your infatuation, my dear," I +answered dryly. + +"I am not apologising for it!" she exclaimed impulsively. "Oh, if you +could only keep it to yourself, I should like to tell you how I trust +and admire and reverence Ronald Macdonald, but of course you will repeat +everything to Willie Beresford within the hour! You think he has gone on +and on loving me against his better judgment. You believe he has fought +against it because of my unfitness, but that I, poor, weak, trivial +thing, am not capable of deep feeling and that I shall never appreciate +the sacrifices he makes in choosing me! Very well, then, I tell you +plainly that if I had to live in a damp manse the rest of my life, drink +tea and eat scones for breakfast, and--and buy my hats of the Inchcaldy +milliner, I should still glory in the possibility of being Ronald +Macdonald's wife--a possibility hourly growing more uncertain, I am +sorry to say!" + +"And the extreme aversion with which you began," I asked--"what +has become of that, and when did it begin to turn in the opposite +direction?" + +"Aversion!" she cried, with convincing and unblushing candour. "That +aversion was a cover, clapped on to keep my self-respect warm. I abused +him a good deal, it is true, because it was so delightful to hear you +and Salemina take his part. Sometimes I trembled for fear you would +agree with me, but you never did. The more I criticised him, the louder +you sang his praises--it was lovely! The fact is--we might as well throw +light upon the whole matter, and then never allude to it again; and if +you tell Willie Beresford, you shall never visit my manse, nor see me +preside at my mothers' meetings, nor hear me address the infant class in +the Sunday-school--the fact is, I liked him from the beginning at Lady +Baird's dinner. I liked the bow he made when he offered me his arm (I +wish it had been his hand); I liked the top of his head when it was +bowed; I liked his arm when I took it; I liked the height of his +shoulder when I stood beside it; I liked the way he put me in my chair +(that showed chivalry), and unfolded his napkin (that was neat and +business-like), and pushed aside all his wine-glasses but one (that was +temperate); I liked the side view of his nose, the shape of his collar, +the cleanness of his shave, the manliness of his tone--oh, I liked him +altogether, you must know how it is, Penelope--the goodness and strength +and simplicity that radiated from him. And when he said, within the +first half-hour, that international alliances presented even more +difficulties to the imagination than others, I felt, to my confusion, a +distinct sense of disappointment. Even while I was quarrelling with him, +I said to myself, 'Poor darling, you cannot have him even if you should +want him, so don't look at him much!'--But I did look at him; and what +is worse, he looked at me; and what is worse yet, he curled himself so +tightly round my heart that if he takes himself away, I shall be cold +the rest of my life!" + +"Then you are really sure of your love this time, and you have never +advised him to wed somebody more worthy than yourself?" I asked. + +"Not I!" she replied. "I wouldn't put such an idea into his head for +worlds! He might adopt it!" + + + +Chapter XXV. A treaty between nations. + + + + 'Pale and wan was she when Glenlogie gaed ben, + But red rosy grew she whene'er he sat doun. + +Glenlogie. + + + +Just here the front door banged, and a manly step sounded on the stair. +Francesca sat up straight in a big chair, and dried her eyes hastily +with her poor little wet ball of a handkerchief; for she knows that +Willie is a privileged visitor in my studio. The door opened (it was +ajar) and Ronald Macdonald strode into the room. I hope I may never have +the same sense of nothingness again! To be young, pleasing, gifted, +and to be regarded no more than a fly upon the wall, is death to one's +self-respect. + +He dropped on one knee beside Francesca, and took her two hands in his +without removing his gaze from her speaking face. She burned, but did +not flinch under the ordeal. The colour leaped into her cheeks. Love +swam in her tears, but was not drowned there; it was too strong. + +"Did you mean it?" he asked. + +She looked at him, trembling, as she said, "I meant every word, and far, +far more. I meant all that a girl can say to a man when she loves him, +and wants to be everything she is capable of being to him, to his work, +to his people, and to his--country." + +Even this brief colloquy had been embarrassing, but I knew that worse +was still to come and could not be delayed much longer, so I left the +room hastily and with no attempt at apology--not that they minded my +presence in the least, or observed my exit, though I was obliged to leap +over Mr. Macdonald's feet in passing. + +I found Mr. Beresford sitting on the stairs, in the lower hall. + +"Willie, you angel, you idol, where did you find him?" I exclaimed. + +"When I went into the post-office, an hour ago," he replied, "I met +Francesca. She asked me for Macdonald's Edinburgh address, saying she +had something that belonged to him and wished to send it after him. +I offered to address the package and see that it reached him as +expeditiously as possible. 'That is what I wish," she said, with +elaborate formality. 'This is something I have just discovered, +something he needs very much, something he does not know he has +left behind.' I did not think it best to tell her at the moment that +Macdonald had not yet deserted Inchcaldy." + +"Willie, you have the quickest intelligence and the most exquisite +insight of any man I ever met!" + +"But the fact was that I had been to see him off, and found him detained +by the sudden illness of one of his elders. I rode over again to take +him the little parcel. Of course I don't know what it contained; by its +size and shape I should judge it might be a thimble, or a collar-button, +or a sixpence; but, at all events, he must have needed the thing, for +he certainly did not let the grass grow under his feet after he received +it! Let us go into the sitting-room until they come down,--as they will +have to, poor wretches, sooner or later; I know that I am always being +brought down against my will. Salemina wants your advice about the +number of her Majesty's portraits to be hung on the front of the +cottage, and the number of candles to be placed in each window." + +It was a half-hour later when Mr. Macdonald came into the room, and, +walking directly up to Salemina, kissed her hand respectfully. + +"Miss Salemina," he said, with evident emotion, "I want to borrow one of +your national jewels for my Queen's crown." + +"And what will our President say to lose a jewel from his crown?" + +"Good republican rulers do not wear coronets, as a matter of principle," +he argued; "but in truth I fear I am not thinking of her Majesty--God +bless her! This gem is not entirely for state occasions. + + '"I would wear it in my bosom, + Lest my jewel I should tine."' + +It is the crowning of my own life rather than that of the British +Empire that engages my present thought. Will you intercede for me with +Francesca's father?" + +"And this is the end of all your international bickering?" Salemina +asked teasingly. + +"Yes," he answered; "we have buried the hatchet, signed articles of +agreement, made treaties of international comity. Francesca stays over +here as a kind of missionary to Scotland, so she says, or as a feminine +diplomat; she wishes to be on hand to enforce the Monroe Doctrine +properly, in case her government's accredited ambassadors relax in the +performance of their duty." + +"Salemina!" called a laughing voice outside the door. "I am +won'erful lifted up. You will be a prood woman the day, for I am now +Estaiblished!" and Francesca, clad in Miss Grieve's Sunday bonnet, +shawl, and black cotton gloves, entered, and curtsied demurely to the +floor. She held, as corroborative detail, a life of John Knox in her +hand, and anything more incongruous than her sparkling eyes and mutinous +mouth under the melancholy head-gear can hardly be imagined. + +"I am now Estaiblished," she repeated. "Div ye ken the new asseestant +frae Inchcawdy pairish? I'm the mon' (a second deep curtsy here). +"I trust, leddies, that ye'll mak' the maist o' your releegious +preevileges, an' that ye'll be constant at the kurruk.--Have you given +papa's consent, Salemina? And isn't it dreadful that he is Scotch?" + +"Isn't it dreadful that she is not?" asked Mr. Macdonald. "Yet to my +mind no woman in Scotland is half as lovable as she!" + +"And no man in America begins to compare with him," Francesca +confessed sadly. "Isn't it pitiful that out of the millions of our own +countrypeople we couldn't have found somebody that would do? What do +you think now, Lord Ronald Macdonald, of these dangerous international +alliances?" + +"You never understood that speech of mine," he replied, with prompt +mendacity. "When I said that international marriages presented more +difficulties to the imagination than others, I was thinking of your +marriage and mine, and that, I knew from the first moment I saw you, +would be extremely difficult to arrange!" + + + +Chapter XXVI. 'Scotland's burning! Look out!' + + + + 'And soon a score of fires, I ween, + From height, and hill, and cliff were seen; + . . . . . . . + Each after each they glanced to sight, + As stars arise upon the night, + They gleamed on many a dusky tarn, + Haunted by the lonely earn; + On many a cairn's grey pyramid, + Where urns of mighty chiefs lie hid.' + +The Lay of the Last Minstrel. + + + +The rain continued at intervals throughout the day, but as the afternoon +wore on the skies looked a trifle more hopeful. It would be 'saft,' no +doubt, climbing the Law, but the bonfire must be lighted. Would Pettybaw +be behind London? Would Pettybaw desert the Queen in her hour of need? +Not though the rain were bursting the well-heads on Cawda; not though +the swollen mountain burns drowned us to the knee! So off we started as +the short midsummer night descended. + +We were to climb the Law, wait for the signal from Cawda's lonely +height, and then fire Pettybaw's torch of loyalty to the little lady +in black; not a blaze flaming out war and rumours of war, as was the +beacon-fire on the old grey battlements of Edinburgh Castle in the days +of yore, but a message of peace and good-will. Pausing at a hut on +the side of the great green mountain, we looked north toward Helva, +white-crested with a wreath of vapour. (You need not look on your map of +Scotland for Cawda and Helva, for you will not find them any more +than you will find Pettybaw and Inchcaldy.) One by one the tops of the +distant hills began to clear, and with the glass we could discern the +bonfire cairns up-built here and there for Scotland's evening sacrifice +of love and fealty. Cawda was still veiled, and Cawda was to give the +signal for all the smaller fires. Pettybaw's, I suppose, was counted +as a flash in the pan, but not one of the hundred patriots climbing the +mountain-side would have acknowledged it; to us the good name of the +kingdom of Fife and the glory of the British Empire depended on Pettybaw +fire. Some of us had misgivings, too,--misgivings founded upon Miss +Grieve's dismal prophecies. She had agreed to put nine lighted candles +in each of our cottage windows at ten o'clock, but had declined to +go out of her kitchen to see a procession, hear a band, or look at +a bonfire. She had had a fair sickenin' day, an amount of work too +wearifu' for one person by her lane. She hoped that the bonfire wasna +built o' Mrs. Sinkler's coals nor Mr. Macbrose's kindlings, nor soaked +with Mr. Cameron's paraffin; and she finished with the customary, but +irrelative and exasperating, allusion to the exceedingly nice family +with whom she had live in Glasgy. + +And still we toiled upward, keeping our doubts to ourselves. Jean was +limping bravely, supported by Robin Anstruther's arm. Mr. Macdonald +was ardently helping Francesca, who can climb like a chamois, but would +doubtless rather be assisted. Her gypsy face shone radiant out of her +black cloth hood, and Ronald's was no less luminous. I have never seen +two beings more love-daft. They comport themselves as if they had +read the manuscript of the tender passion, and were moving in exalted +superiority through a less favoured world,--a world waiting impatiently +for the first number of the story to come out. + +Still we climbed, and as we approached the Grey Lady (a curious rock +very near the summit) somebody proposed three cheers for the Queen. + +How the children hurrahed,--for the infant heart is easily +inflamed,--and how their shrill Jubilee slogan pierced the mystery of +the night, and went rolling on from glen to glen to the Firth of Forth +itself! Then there was a shout from the rocketmen far out on the open +moor,--'Cawda's clear! Cawda's clear!' Back against a silver sky stood +the signal pile, and signal rockets flashed upward, to be answered from +all the surrounding hills. + +Now to light our own fire. One of the village committee solemnly took +off his hat and poured on oil. The great moment had come. Brenda Macrae +approached the sacred pile, and, tremulous from the effect of much +contradictory advice, applied the torch. Silence, thou Grieve and +others, false prophets of disaster! Who now could say that Pettybaw +bonfire had been badly built, or that its fifteen tons of coal and +twenty cords of wood had been unphilosophically heaped together? + +The flames rushed toward the sky with ruddy blaze, shining with weird +effect against the black fir-trees and the blacker night. Three cheers +more! God save the Queen! May she reign over us, happy and glorious! And +we cheered lustily, too, you may be sure! It was more for the woman +than the monarch; it was for the blameless life, not for the splendid +monarchy; but there was everything hearty, and nothing alien in our +tone, when we sang 'God save the Queen' with the rest of the Pettybaw +villagers. + +The land darkened; the wind blew chill. Willie, Mr. Macdonald, and Mr. +Anstruther brought rugs, and found a sheltered nook for us where we +might still watch the scene. There we sat, looking at the plains below, +with all the village streets sparkling with light, with rockets shooting +into the air and falling to earth in golden rain, with red lights +flickering on the grey lakes, and with one beacon-fire after another +gleaming from the hilltops, till we could count more than fifty +answering one another from the wooded crests along the shore, some +of them piercing the rifts of low-lying clouds till they seemed to be +burning in mid-heaven. + +Then one by one the distant fires faded, and as some of us still sat +there silently, far, far away in the grey east there was a faint flush +of carmine where the new dawn was kindling in secret. Underneath +that violet bank of cloud the sun was forging his beams of light. The +pole-star paled. The breath of the new morrow stole up out of the rosy +grey. The wings of the morning stirred and trembled; and in the darkness +and chill and mysterious awakening eyes looked into other eyes, hand +sought hand, and cheeks touched each other in mute caress. + + + +Chapter XXVII. Three magpies and a marriage. + + + + 'Sun, gallop down the westlin skies, + Gang soon to bed, an' quickly rise; + O lash your steeds, post time away, + And haste about our bridal day!' + +The Gentle Shepherd. + + + +Every noon, during this last week, as we have wended our way up the +loaning to the Pettybaw inn for our luncheon, we have passed three +magpies sitting together on the topmost rail of the fence. I am not +prepared to state that they were always the same magpies; I only know +there were always three of them. We have just discovered what they were +about, and great is the excitement in our little circle. I am to be +married to-morrow, and married in Pettybaw, and Miss Grieve says that +in Scotland the number of magpies one sees is of infinite significance: +that one means sorrow; two, mirth; three, a marriage; four, a birth, and +we now recall as corroborative detail that we saw one magpie, our first, +on the afternoon of her arrival. + +Mr. Beresford has been cabled for, and must return to America at once on +important business. He persuaded me that the Atlantic is an ower large +body of water to roll between two lovers, and I agreed with all my +heart. + +A wedding was arranged, mostly by telegraph, in six hours. The Reverend +Ronald and the Friar are to perform the ceremony; a dear old painter +friend of mine, a London R.A., will come to give me away; Francesca +will be my maid of honour; Elizabeth Ardmore and Jean Dalziel, my +bridemaidens; Robin Anstruther, the best man; while Jamie and Ralph will +be kilted pages-in-waiting, and Lady Ardmore will give the breakfast at +the Castle. + +Never was there such generosity, such hospitality, such wealth of +friendship! True, I have no wedding finery; but as I am perforce a +Scottish bride, I can be married in the white gown with the silver +thistles in which I went to Holyrood. + +Mr. Anstruther took a night train to and from London to choose the +bouquets and bridal souvenirs. Lady Baird has sent the veil, and a +wonderful diamond thistle to pin it on,--a jewel fit for a princess! +With the dear Dominie's note promising to be an usher came an antique +silver casket filled with white heather. And as for the bride-cake, +it is one of Salemina's gifts, chosen as much in a spirit of fun +as affection. It is surely appropriate for this American wedding +transplanted to Scottish soil, and what should it be but a model, in +fairy icing, of Sir Walter's beautiful monument in Princes Street! Of +course Francesca is full of nonsensical quips about it, and says that +the Edinburgh jail would have been just as fine architecturally (it is, +in truth, a building beautiful enough to tempt an aesthete to crime), +and a much more fitting symbol for a wedding-cake, unless, indeed, she +adds, Salemina intends her gift to be a monument to my folly. + +Pettybaw kirk is trimmed with yellow broom from these dear Scottish +banks and braes; and waving their green fans and plumes up and down +the aisle where I shall walk a bride, are tall ferns and bracken from +Crummylowe Glen, where we played ballads. + +As I look back upon it, the life here has been all a ballad from first +to last. Like the elfin Tam Lin, + + 'The queen o' fairies she caught me + In this green hill to dwell,' + +and these hasty nuptials are a fittingly romantic ending to the +summer's poetry. I am in a mood, were it necessary, to be 'ta'en by +the milk-white hand,' lifted to a pillion on a coal-black charger, +and spirited 'o'er the border an' awa'' by my dear Jock o' Hazeldean. +Unhappily, all is quite regular and aboveboard; no 'lord o' Langley +dale' contests the prize with the bridegroom, but the marriage is +at least unique and unconventional; no one can rob me of that sweet +consolation. + +So 'gallop down the westlin skies,' dear Sun, but, prythee, gallop back +to-morrow! 'Gang soon to bed,' an you will, but rise again betimes! Give +me Queen's weather, dear Sun, and shine a benison upon my wedding-morn! + + +[Exit Penelope into the ballad-land of maiden dreams.] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Penelope's Experiences in Scotland, by +Kate Douglas Wiggin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PENELOPE'S EXPERIENCES IN SCOTLAND *** + +***** This file should be named 1217.txt or 1217.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/1/1217/ + +Produced by Les Bowler + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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