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diff --git a/342-h/342-h.htm b/342-h/342-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c9402ac --- /dev/null +++ b/342-h/342-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3553 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Margaret Ogilvy, by J. M. Barrie</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 30%; } + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Margaret Ogilvy, by J. M. Barrie + + +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: Margaret Ogilvy + by her son + + +Author: J. M. Barrie + + + +Release Date: October 21, 2010 [eBook #342] +First Posted: October 23, 1995 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARGARET OGILVY*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1897 Chatto & Windus edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p0ab.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Picture of Margaret Ogilvy" +title= +"Picture of Margaret Ogilvy" +src="images/p0as.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h1>MARGARET OGILVY</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">by her +son</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">J. M. BARRIE</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p0bb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Graphic" +title= +"Graphic" +src="images/p0bs.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Second Edition</i><br /> +<i>Completing Twentieth Thousand</i></p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="smcap">london</span><br /> +HODDER AND STOUGHTON<br /> +27 paternoster row<br /> +1897</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">to</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">the memory of</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">my sister</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Jane Ann</span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER I—HOW MY MOTHER GOT HER SOFT FACE</h2> +<p>On the day I was born we bought six hair-bottomed chairs, and +in our little house it was an event, the first great victory in a +woman’s long campaign; how they had been laboured for, the +pound-note and the thirty threepenny-bits they cost, what anxiety +there was about the purchase, the show they made in possession of +the west room, my father’s unnatural coolness when he +brought them in (but his face was white)—I so often heard +the tale afterwards, and shared as boy and man in so many similar +triumphs, that the coming of the chairs seems to be something I +remember, as if I had jumped out of bed on that first day, and +run ben to see how they looked. I am sure my mother’s +feet were ettling to be ben long before they could be trusted, +and that the moment after she was left alone with me she was +discovered barefooted in the west room, doctoring a scar (which +she had been the first to detect) on one of the chairs, or +sitting on them regally, or withdrawing and re-opening the door +suddenly to take the six by surprise. And then, I think, a +shawl was flung over her (it is strange to me to think it was not +I who ran after her with the shawl), and she was escorted sternly +back to bed and reminded that she had promised not to budge, to +which her reply was probably that she had been gone but an +instant, and the implication that therefore she had not been gone +at all. Thus was one little bit of her revealed to me at +once: I wonder if I took note of it. Neighbours came in to +see the boy and the chairs. I wonder if she deceived me +when she affected to think that there were others like us, or +whether I saw through her from the first, she was so easily seen +through. When she seemed to agree with them that it would +be impossible to give me a college education, was I so easily +taken in, or did I know already what ambitions burned behind that +dear face? when they spoke of the chairs as the goal quickly +reached, was I such a newcomer that her timid lips must say +‘They are but a beginning’ before I heard the +words? And when we were left together, did I laugh at the +great things that were in her mind, or had she to whisper them to +me first, and then did I put my arm round her and tell her that I +would help? Thus it was for such a long time: it is strange +to me to feel that it was not so from the beginning.</p> +<p>It is all guess-work for six years, and she whom I see in them +is the woman who came suddenly into view when they were at an +end. Her timid lips I have said, but they were not timid +then, and when I knew her the timid lips had come. The soft +face—they say the face was not so soft then. The +shawl that was flung over her—we had not begun to hunt her +with a shawl, nor to make our bodies a screen between her and the +draughts, nor to creep into her room a score of times in the +night to stand looking at her as she slept. We did not see +her becoming little then, nor sharply turn our heads when she +said wonderingly how small her arms had grown. In her +happiest moments—and never was a happier woman—her +mouth did not of a sudden begin to twitch, and tears to lie on +the mute blue eyes in which I have read all I know and would ever +care to write. For when you looked into my mother’s +eyes you knew, as if He had told you, why God sent her into the +world—it was to open the minds of all who looked to +beautiful thoughts. And that is the beginning and end of +literature. Those eyes that I cannot see until I was six +years old have guided me through life, and I pray God they may +remain my only earthly judge to the last. They were never +more my guide than when I helped to put her to earth, not +whimpering because my mother had been taken away after +seventy-six glorious years of life, but exulting in her even at +the grave.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>She had a son who was far away at school. I remember +very little about him, only that he was a merry-faced boy who ran +like a squirrel up a tree and shook the cherries into my +lap. When he was thirteen and I was half his age the +terrible news came, and I have been told the face of my mother +was awful in its calmness as she set off to get between Death and +her boy. We trooped with her down the brae to the wooden +station, and I think I was envying her the journey in the +mysterious wagons; I know we played around her, proud of our +right to be there, but I do not recall it, I only speak from +hearsay. Her ticket was taken, she had bidden us good-bye +with that fighting face which I cannot see, and then my father +came out of the telegraph-office and said huskily, +‘He’s gone!’ Then we turned very quietly +and went home again up the little brae. But I speak from +hearsay no longer; I knew my mother for ever now.</p> +<p>That is how she got her soft face and her pathetic ways and +her large charity, and why other mothers ran to her when they had +lost a child. ‘Dinna greet, poor Janet,’ she +would say to them; and they would answer, ‘Ah, Margaret, +but you’re greeting yoursel.’ Margaret Ogilvy +had been her maiden name, and after the Scotch custom she was +still Margaret Ogilvy to her old friends. Margaret Ogilvy I +loved to name her. Often when I was a boy, ‘Margaret +Ogilvy, are you there?’ I would call up the +stair.</p> +<p>She was always delicate from that hour, and for many months +she was very ill. I have heard that the first thing she +expressed a wish to see was the christening robe, and she looked +long at it and then turned her face to the wall. That was +what made me as a boy think of it always as the robe in which he +was christened, but I knew later that we had all been christened +in it, from the oldest of the family to the youngest, between +whom stood twenty years. Hundreds of other children were +christened in it also, such robes being then a rare possession, +and the lending of ours among my mother’s glories. It +was carried carefully from house to house, as if it were itself a +child; my mother made much of it, smoothed it out, petted it, +smiled to it before putting it into the arms of those to whom it +was being lent; she was in our pew to see it borne magnificently +(something inside it now) down the aisle to the pulpit-side, when +a stir of expectancy went through the church and we kicked each +other’s feet beneath the book-board but were reverent in +the face; and however the child might behave, laughing brazenly +or skirling to its mother’s shame, and whatever the father +as he held it up might do, look doited probably and bow at the +wrong time, the christening robe of long experience helped them +through. And when it was brought back to her she took it in +her arms as softly as if it might be asleep, and unconsciously +pressed it to her breast: there was never anything in the house +that spoke to her quite so eloquently as that little white robe; +it was the one of her children that always remained a baby. +And she had not made it herself, which was the most wonderful +thing about it to me, for she seemed to have made all other +things. All the clothes in the house were of her making, +and you don’t know her in the least if you think they were +out of the fashion; she turned them and made them new again, she +beat them and made them new again, and then she coaxed them into +being new again just for the last time, she let them out and took +them in and put on new braid, and added a piece up the back, and +thus they passed from one member of the family to another until +they reached the youngest, and even when we were done with them +they reappeared as something else. In the fashion! I +must come back to this. Never was a woman with such an eye +for it. She had no fashion-plates; she did not need +them. The minister’s wife (a cloak), the +banker’s daughters (the new sleeve)—they had but to +pass our window once, and the scalp, so to speak, was in my +mother’s hands. Observe her rushing, scissors in +hand, thread in mouth, to the drawers where her daughters’ +Sabbath clothes were kept. Or go to church next Sunday, and +watch a certain family filing in, the boy lifting his legs high +to show off his new boots, but all the others demure, especially +the timid, unobservant-looking little woman in the rear of +them. If you were the minister’s wife that day or the +banker’s daughters you would have got a shock. But +she bought the christening robe, and when I used to ask why, she +would beam and look conscious, and say she wanted to be +extravagant once. And she told me, still smiling, that the +more a woman was given to stitching and making things for +herself, the greater was her passionate desire now and again to +rush to the shops and ‘be foolish.’ The +christening robe with its pathetic frills is over half a century +old now, and has begun to droop a little, like a daisy whose time +is past; but it is as fondly kept together as ever: I saw it in +use again only the other day.</p> +<p>My mother lay in bed with the christening robe beside her, and +I peeped in many times at the door and then went to the stair and +sat on it and sobbed. I know not if it was that first day, +or many days afterwards, that there came to me, my sister, the +daughter my mother loved the best; yes, more I am sure even than +she loved me, whose great glory she has been since I was six +years old. This sister, who was then passing out of her +‘teens, came to me with a very anxious face and wringing +her hands, and she told me to go ben to my mother and say to her +that she still had another boy. I went ben excitedly, but +the room was dark, and when I heard the door shut and no sound +come from the bed I was afraid, and I stood still. I +suppose I was breathing hard, or perhaps I was crying, for after +a time I heard a listless voice that had never been listless +before say, ‘Is that you?’ I think the tone +hurt me, for I made no answer, and then the voice said more +anxiously ‘Is that you?’ again. I thought it +was the dead boy she was speaking to, and I said in a little +lonely voice, ‘No, it’s no him, it’s just +me.’ Then I heard a cry, and my mother turned in bed, +and though it was dark I knew that she was holding out her +arms.</p> +<p>After that I sat a great deal in her bed trying to make her +forget him, which was my crafty way of playing physician, and if +I saw any one out of doors do something that made the others +laugh I immediately hastened to that dark room and did it before +her. I suppose I was an odd little figure; I have been told +that my anxiety to brighten her gave my face a strained look and +put a tremor into the joke (I would stand on my head in the bed, +my feet against the wall, and then cry excitedly, ‘Are you +laughing, mother?’)—and perhaps what made her laugh +was something I was unconscious of, but she did laugh suddenly +now and then, whereupon I screamed exultantly to that dear +sister, who was ever in waiting, to come and see the sight, but +by the time she came the soft face was wet again. Thus I +was deprived of some of my glory, and I remember once only making +her laugh before witnesses. I kept a record of her laughs +on a piece of paper, a stroke for each, and it was my custom to +show this proudly to the doctor every morning. There were +five strokes the first time I slipped it into his hand, and when +their meaning was explained to him he laughed so boisterously, +that I cried, ‘I wish that was one of hers!’ +Then he was sympathetic, and asked me if my mother had seen the +paper yet, and when I shook my head he said that if I showed it +to her now and told her that these were her five laughs he +thought I might win another. I had less confidence, but he +was the mysterious man whom you ran for in the dead of night (you +flung sand at his window to waken him, and if it was only +toothache he extracted the tooth through the open window, but +when it was something sterner he was with you in the dark square +at once, like a man who slept in his topcoat), so I did as he +bade me, and not only did she laugh then but again when I put the +laugh down, so that though it was really one laugh with a tear in +the middle I counted it as two.</p> +<p>It was doubtless that same sister who told me not to sulk when +my mother lay thinking of him, but to try instead to get her to +talk about him. I did not see how this could make her the +merry mother she used to be, but I was told that if I could not +do it nobody could, and this made me eager to begin. At +first, they say, I was often jealous, stopping her fond memories +with the cry, ‘Do you mind nothing about me?’ but +that did not last; its place was taken by an intense desire +(again, I think, my sister must have breathed it into life) to +become so like him that even my mother should not see the +difference, and many and artful were the questions I put to that +end. Then I practised in secret, but after a whole week had +passed I was still rather like myself. He had such a cheery +way of whistling, she had told me, it had always brightened her +at her work to hear him whistling, and when he whistled he stood +with his legs apart, and his hands in the pockets of his +knickerbockers. I decided to trust to this, so one day +after I had learned his whistle (every boy of enterprise invents +a whistle of his own) from boys who had been his comrades, I +secretly put on a suit of his clothes, dark grey they were, with +little spots, and they fitted me many years afterwards, and thus +disguised I slipped, unknown to the others, into my +mother’s room. Quaking, I doubt not, yet so pleased, +I stood still until she saw me, and then—how it must have +hurt her! ‘Listen!’ I cried in a glow of +triumph, and I stretched my legs wide apart and plunged my hands +into the pockets of my knickerbockers, and began to whistle.</p> +<p>She lived twenty-nine years after his death, such active years +until toward the end, that you never knew where she was unless +you took hold of her, and though she was frail henceforth and +ever growing frailer, her housekeeping again became famous, so +that brides called as a matter of course to watch her +ca’ming and sanding and stitching: there are old people +still, one or two, to tell with wonder in their eyes how she +could bake twenty-four bannocks in the hour, and not a chip in +one of them. And how many she gave away, how much she gave +away of all she had, and what pretty ways she had of giving +it! Her face beamed and rippled with mirth as before, and +her laugh that I had tried so hard to force came running home +again. I have heard no such laugh as hers save from merry +children; the laughter of most of us ages, and wears out with the +body, but hers remained gleeful to the last, as if it were born +afresh every morning. There was always something of the +child in her, and her laugh was its voice, as eloquent of the +past to me as was the christening robe to her. But I had +not made her forget the bit of her that was dead; in those +nine-and-twenty years he was not removed one day farther from +her. Many a time she fell asleep speaking to him, and even +while she slept her lips moved and she smiled as if he had come +back to her, and when she woke he might vanish so suddenly that +she started up bewildered and looked about her, and then said +slowly, ‘My David’s dead!’ or perhaps he +remained long enough to whisper why he must leave her now, and +then she lay silent with filmy eyes. When I became a man +and he was still a boy of thirteen, I wrote a little paper called +‘Dead this Twenty Years,’ which was about a similar +tragedy in another woman’s life, and it is the only thing I +have written that she never spoke about, not even to that +daughter she loved the best. No one ever spoke of it to +her, or asked her if she had read it: one does not ask a mother +if she knows that there is a little coffin in the house. +She read many times the book in which it is printed, but when she +came to that chapter she would put her hands to her heart or even +over her ears.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER II—WHAT SHE HAD BEEN</h2> +<p>What she had been, what I should be, these were the two great +subjects between us in my boyhood, and while we discussed the one +we were deciding the other, though neither of us knew it.</p> +<p>Before I reached my tenth year a giant entered my native place +in the night, and we woke to find him in possession. He +transformed it into a new town at a rate with which we boys only +could keep up, for as fast as he built dams we made rafts to sail +in them; he knocked down houses, and there we were crying +‘Pilly!’ among the ruins; he dug trenches, and we +jumped them; we had to be dragged by the legs from beneath his +engines, he sunk wells, and in we went. But though there +were never circumstances to which boys could not adapt themselves +in half an hour, older folk are slower in the uptake, and I am +sure they stood and gaped at the changes so suddenly being worked +in our midst, and scarce knew their way home now in the +dark. Where had been formerly but the click of the shuttle +was soon the roar of ‘power,’ handlooms were pushed +into a corner as a room is cleared for a dance; every morning at +half-past five the town was wakened with a yell, and from a +chimney-stack that rose high into our caller air the conqueror +waved for evermore his flag of smoke. Another era had +dawned, new customs, new fashions sprang into life, all as lusty +as if they had been born at twenty-one; as quickly as two people +may exchange seats, the daughter, till now but a knitter of +stockings, became the breadwinner, he who had been the +breadwinner sat down to the knitting of stockings: what had been +yesterday a nest of weavers was to-day a town of girls.</p> +<p>I am not of those who would fling stones at the change; it is +something, surely, that backs are no longer prematurely bent; you +may no more look through dim panes of glass at the aged poor +weaving tremulously for their little bit of ground in the +cemetery. Rather are their working years too few now, not +because they will it so but because it is with youth that the +power-looms must be fed. Well, this teaches them to make +provision, and they have the means as they never had +before. Not in batches are boys now sent to college; the +half-dozen a year have dwindled to one, doubtless because in +these days they can begin to draw wages as they step out of their +fourteenth year. Here assuredly there is loss, but all the +losses would be but a pebble in a sea of gain were it not for +this, that with so many of the family, young mothers among them, +working in the factories, home life is not so beautiful as it +was. So much of what is great in Scotland has sprung from +the closeness of the family ties; it is there I sometimes fear +that my country is being struck. That we are all being +reduced to one dead level, that character abounds no more and +life itself is less interesting, such things I have read, but I +do not believe them. I have even seen them given as my +reason for writing of a past time, and in that at least there is +no truth. In our little town, which is a sample of many, +life is as interesting, as pathetic, as joyous as ever it was; no +group of weavers was better to look at or think about than the +rivulet of winsome girls that overruns our streets every time the +sluice is raised, the comedy of summer evenings and winter +firesides is played with the old zest and every window-blind is +the curtain of a romance. Once the lights of a little town +are lit, who could ever hope to tell all its story, or the story +of a single wynd in it? And who looking at lighted windows +needs to turn to books? The reason my books deal with the +past instead of with the life I myself have known is simply this, +that I soon grow tired of writing tales unless I can see a little +girl, of whom my mother has told me, wandering confidently +through the pages. Such a grip has her memory of her +girlhood had upon me since I was a boy of six.</p> +<p>Those innumerable talks with her made her youth as vivid to me +as my own, and so much more quaint, for, to a child, the oddest +of things, and the most richly coloured picture-book, is that his +mother was once a child also, and the contrast between what she +is and what she was is perhaps the source of all humour. My +mother’s father, the one hero of her life, died nine years +before I was born, and I remember this with bewilderment, so +familiarly does the weather-beaten mason’s figure rise +before me from the old chair on which I was nursed and now write +my books. On the surface he is as hard as the stone on +which he chiselled, and his face is dyed red by its dust, he is +rounded in the shoulders and a ‘hoast’ hunts him +ever; sooner or later that cough must carry him off, but until +then it shall not keep him from the quarry, nor shall his chapped +hands, as long as they can grasp the mell. It is a night of +rain or snow, and my mother, the little girl in a pinafore who is +already his housekeeper, has been many times to the door to look +for him. At last he draws nigh, hoasting. Or I see +him setting off to church, for he was a great ‘stoop’ +of the Auld Licht kirk, and his mouth is very firm now as if +there were a case of discipline to face, but on his way home he +is bowed with pity. Perhaps his little daughter who saw him +so stern an hour ago does not understand why he wrestles so long +in prayer to-night, or why when he rises from his knees he +presses her to him with unwonted tenderness. Or he is in +this chair repeating to her his favourite poem, ‘The +Cameronian’s Dream,’ and at the first lines so +solemnly uttered,</p> +<blockquote><p>‘In a dream of the night I was wafted +away,’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>she screams with excitement, just as I screamed long +afterwards when she repeated them in his voice to me. Or I +watch, as from a window, while she sets off through the long +parks to the distant place where he is at work, in her hand a +flagon which contains his dinner. She is singing to herself +and gleefully swinging the flagon, she jumps the burn and proudly +measures the jump with her eye, but she never dallies unless she +meets a baby, for she was so fond of babies that she must hug +each one she met, but while she hugged them she also noted how +their robes were cut, and afterwards made paper patterns, which +she concealed jealously, and in the fulness of time her first +robe for her eldest born was fashioned from one of these +patterns, made when she was in her twelfth year.</p> +<p>She was eight when her mother’s death made her mistress +of the house and mother to her little brother, and from that time +she scrubbed and mended and baked and sewed, and argued with the +flesher about the quarter pound of beef and penny bone which +provided dinner for two days (but if you think that this was +poverty you don’t know the meaning of the word), and she +carried the water from the pump, and had her washing-days and her +ironings and a stocking always on the wire for odd moments, and +gossiped like a matron with the other women, and humoured the men +with a tolerant smile—all these things she did as a matter +of course, leaping joyful from bed in the morning because there +was so much to do, doing it as thoroughly and sedately as if the +brides were already due for a lesson, and then rushing out in a +fit of childishness to play dumps or palaulays with others of her +age. I see her frocks lengthening, though they were never +very short, and the games given reluctantly up. The horror of my +boyhood was that I knew a time would come when I also must give +up the games, and how it was to be done I saw not (this agony +still returns to me in dreams, when I catch myself playing +marbles, and look on with cold displeasure); I felt that I must +continue playing in secret, and I took this shadow to her, when +she told me her own experience, which convinced us both that we +were very like each other inside. She had discovered that +work is the best fun after all, and I learned it in time, but +have my lapses, and so had she.</p> +<p>I know what was her favourite costume when she was at the age +that they make heroines of: it was a pale blue with a pale blue +bonnet, the white ribbons of which tied aggravatingly beneath the +chin, and when questioned about this garb she never admitted that +she looked pretty in it, but she did say, with blushes too, that +blue was her colour, and then she might smile, as at some memory, +and begin to tell us about a man who—but it ended there +with another smile which was longer in departing. She never +said, indeed she denied strenuously, that she had led the men a +dance, but again the smile returned, and came between us and full +belief. Yes, she had her little vanities; when she got the +Mizpah ring she did carry that finger in such a way that the most +reluctant must see. She was very particular about her +gloves, and hid her boots so that no other should put them on, +and then she forgot their hiding-place, and had suspicions of the +one who found them. A good way of enraging her was to say +that her last year’s bonnet would do for this year without +alteration, or that it would defy the face of clay to count the +number of her shawls. In one of my books there is a mother +who is setting off with her son for the town to which he had been +called as minister, and she pauses on the threshold to ask him +anxiously if he thinks her bonnet ‘sets’ her. A +reviewer said she acted thus, not because she cared how she +looked, but for the sake of her son. This, I remember, +amused my mother very much.</p> +<p>I have seen many weary on-dings of snow, but the one I seem to +recollect best occurred nearly twenty years before I was +born. It was at the time of my mother’s marriage to +one who proved a most loving as he was always a well-loved +husband, a man I am very proud to be able to call my +father. I know not for how many days the snow had been +falling, but a day came when the people lost heart and would make +no more gullies through it, and by next morning to do so was +impossible, they could not fling the snow high enough. Its +back was against every door when Sunday came, and none ventured +out save a valiant few, who buffeted their way into my +mother’s home to discuss her predicament, for unless she +was ‘cried’ in the church that day she might not be +married for another week, and how could she be cried with the +minister a field away and the church buried to the waist? +For hours they talked, and at last some men started for the +church, which was several hundred yards distant. Three of +them found a window, and forcing a passage through it, cried the +pair, and that is how it came about that my father and mother +were married on the first of March.</p> +<p>That would be the end, I suppose, if it were a story, but to +my mother it was only another beginning, and not the last. +I see her bending over the cradle of her first-born, college for +him already in her eye (and my father not less ambitious), and +anon it is a girl who is in the cradle, and then another +girl—already a tragic figure to those who know the +end. I wonder if any instinct told my mother that the great +day of her life was when she bore this child; what I am sure of +is that from the first the child followed her with the most +wistful eyes and saw how she needed help and longed to rise and +give it. For of physical strength my mother had never very +much; it was her spirit that got through the work, and in those +days she was often so ill that the sand rained on the +doctor’s window, and men ran to and fro with leeches, and +‘she is in life, we can say no more’ was the +information for those who came knocking at the door. +‘I am sorrow to say,’ her father writes in an old +letter now before me, ‘that Margaret is in a state that she +was never so bad before in this world. Till Wednesday night +she was in as poor a condition as you could think of to be +alive. However, after bleeding, leeching, etc., the Dr. +says this morning that he is better hoped now, but at present we +can say no more but only she is alive and in the hands of Him in +whose hands all our lives are. I can give you no adequate +view of what my feelings are, indeed they are a burden too heavy +for me and I cannot describe them. I look on my right and +left hand and find no comfort, and if it were not for the rock +that is higher than I my spirit would utterly fall, but blessed +be His name who can comfort those that are cast down. O for +more faith in His supporting grace in this hour of +trial.’</p> +<p>Then she is ‘on the mend,’ she may ‘thole +thro’’ if they take great care of her, ‘which +we will be forward to do.’ The fourth child dies when +but a few weeks old, and the next at two years. She was her +grandfather’s companion, and thus he wrote of her death, +this stern, self-educated Auld Licht with the chapped +hands:—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘I hope you received my last in which I +spoke of Dear little Lydia being unwell. Now with deep +sorrow I must tell you that yesterday I assisted in laying her +dear remains in the lonely grave. She died at 7 +o’clock on Wednesday evening, I suppose by the time you had +got the letter. The Dr. did not think it was croup till +late on Tuesday night, and all that Medical aid could prescribe +was done, but the Dr. had no hope after he saw that the croup was +confirmed, and hard indeed would the heart have been that would +not have melted at seeing what the dear little creature suffered +all Wednesday until the feeble frame was quite worn out. +She was quite sensible till within 2 hours of her death, and then +she sunk quite low till the vital spark fled, and all medicine +that she got she took with the greatest readiness, as if +apprehensive they would make her well. I cannot well +describe my feelings on the occasion. I thought that the +fountain-head of my tears had now been dried up, but I have been +mistaken, for I must confess that the briny rivulets descended +fast on my furrowed cheeks, she was such a winning Child, and had +such a regard for me and always came and told me all her little +things, and as she was now speaking, some of her little prattle +was very taking, and the lively images of these things intrude +themselves more into my mind than they should do, but there is +allowance for moderate grief on such occasions. But when I +am telling you of my own grief and sorrow, I know not what to say +of the bereaved Mother, she hath not met with anything in this +world before that hath gone so near the quick with her. She +had no handling of the last one as she was not able at the time, +for she only had her once in her arms, and her affections had not +time to be so fairly entwined around her. I am much afraid +that she will not soon if ever get over this trial. +Although she was weakly before, yet she was pretty well +recovered, but this hath not only affected her mind, but her body +is so much affected that she is not well able to sit so long as +her bed is making and hath scarcely tasted meat [i.e. food] since +Monday night, and till some time is elapsed we cannot say how she +may be. There is none that is not a Parent themselves that +can fully sympathise with one in such a state. David is +much affected also, but it is not so well known on him, and the +younger branches of the family are affected but it will be only +momentary. But alas in all this vast ado, there is only the +sorrow of the world which worketh death. O how gladdening +would it be if we were in as great bitterness for sin as for the +loss of a first-born. O how unfitted persons or families is +for trials who knows not the divine art of casting all their +cares upon the Lord, and what multitudes are there that when +earthly comforts is taken away, may well say What have I more? +all their delight is placed in some one thing or another in the +world, and who can blame them for unwillingly parting with what +they esteem their chief good? O that we were wise to lay up +treasure for the time of need, for it is truly a solemn affair to +enter the lists with the king of terrors. It is strange +that the living lay the things so little to heart until they have +to engage in that war where there is no discharge. O that +my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears that I +might weep day and night for my own and others’ stupidity +in this great matter. O for grace to do every day work in +its proper time and to live above the tempting cheating train of +earthly things. The rest of the family are moderately +well. I have been for some days worse than I have been for +8 months past, but I may soon get better. I am in the same +way I have often been in before, but there is no security for it +always being so, for I know that it cannot be far from the time +when I will be one of those that once were. I have no other +news to send you, and as little heart for them. I hope you +will take the earliest opportunity of writing that you can, and +be particular as regards Margaret, for she requires +consolation.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>He died exactly a week after writing this letter, but my +mother was to live for another forty-four years. And joys +of a kind never shared in by him were to come to her so +abundantly, so long drawn out that, strange as it would have +seemed to him to know it, her fuller life had scarce yet +begun. And with the joys were to come their sweet, +frightened comrades pain and grief; again she was to be touched +to the quick, again and again to be so ill that ‘she is in +life, we can say no more,’ but still she had attendants +very ‘forward’ to help her, some of them unborn in +her father’s time.</p> +<p>She told me everything, and so my memories of our little red +town are coloured by her memories. I knew it as it had been +for generations, and suddenly I saw it change, and the +transformation could not fail to strike a boy, for these first +years are the most impressionable (nothing that happens after we +are twelve matters very much); they are also the most vivid years +when we look back, and more vivid the farther we have to look, +until, at the end, what lies between bends like a hoop, and the +extremes meet. But though the new town is to me a glass +through which I look at the old, the people I see passing up and +down these wynds, sitting, nightcapped, on their barrow-shafts, +hobbling in their blacks to church on Sunday, are less those I +saw in my childhood than their fathers and mothers who did these +things in the same way when my mother was young. I cannot +picture the place without seeing her, as a little girl, come to +the door of a certain house and beat her bass against the +gav’le-end, or there is a wedding to-night, and the +carriage with the white-eared horse is sent for a maiden in pale +blue, whose bonnet-strings tie beneath the chin.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER III—WHAT I SHOULD BE</h2> +<p>My mother was a great reader, and with ten minutes to spare +before the starch was ready would begin the ‘Decline and +Fall’—and finish it, too, that winter. Foreign +words in the text annoyed her and made her bemoan her want of a +classical education—she had only attended a Dame’s +school during some easy months—but she never passed the +foreign words by until their meaning was explained to her, and +when next she and they met it was as acquaintances, which I think +was clever of her. One of her delights was to learn from me +scraps of Horace, and then bring them into her conversation with +‘colleged men.’ I have come upon her in lonely +places, such as the stair-head or the east room, muttering these +quotations aloud to herself, and I well remember how she would +say to the visitors, ‘Ay, ay, it’s very true, Doctor, +but as you know, “Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume, labuntur +anni,”’ or ‘Sal, Mr. So-and-so, my lassie is +thriving well, but would it no’ be more to the point to +say, “O matra pulchra filia pulchrior”?’ which +astounded them very much if she managed to reach the end without +being flung, but usually she had a fit of laughing in the middle, +and so they found her out.</p> +<p>Biography and exploration were her favourite reading, for +choice the biography of men who had been good to their mothers, +and she liked the explorers to be alive so that she could shudder +at the thought of their venturing forth again; but though she +expressed a hope that they would have the sense to stay at home +henceforth, she gleamed with admiration when they disappointed +her. In later days I had a friend who was an African +explorer, and she was in two minds about him; he was one of the +most engrossing of mortals to her, she admired him prodigiously, +pictured him at the head of his caravan, now attacked by savages, +now by wild beasts, and adored him for the uneasy hours he gave +her, but she was also afraid that he wanted to take me with him, +and then she thought he should be put down by law. +Explorers’ mothers also interested her very much; the books +might tell her nothing about them, but she could create them for +herself and wring her hands in sympathy with them when they had +got no news of him for six months. Yet there were times +when she grudged him to them—as the day when he returned +victorious. Then what was before her eyes was not the son +coming marching home again but an old woman peering for him round +the window curtain and trying not to look uplifted. The +newspaper reports would be about the son, but my mother’s +comment was ‘She’s a proud woman this +night.’</p> +<p>We read many books together when I was a boy, ‘Robinson +Crusoe’ being the first (and the second), and the +‘Arabian Nights’ should have been the next, for we +got it out of the library (a penny for three days), but on +discovering that they were nights when we had paid for knights we +sent that volume packing, and I have curled my lips at it ever +since. ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ we had in +the house (it was as common a possession as a dresser-head), and +so enamoured of it was I that I turned our garden into sloughs of +Despond, with pea-sticks to represent Christian on his travels +and a buffet-stool for his burden, but when I dragged my mother +out to see my handiwork she was scared, and I felt for days, with +a certain elation, that I had been a dark character. +Besides reading every book we could hire or borrow I also bought +one now and again, and while buying (it was the occupation of +weeks) I read, standing at the counter, most of the other books +in the shop, which is perhaps the most exquisite way of +reading. And I took in a magazine called +‘Sunshine,’ the most delicious periodical, I am sure, +of any day. It cost a halfpenny or a penny a month, and +always, as I fondly remember, had a continued tale about the +dearest girl, who sold water-cress, which is a dainty not grown +and I suppose never seen in my native town. This romantic +little creature took such hold of my imagination that I cannot +eat water-cress even now without emotion. I lay in bed +wondering what she would be up to in the next number; I have lost +trout because when they nibbled my mind was wandering with her; +my early life was embittered by her not arriving regularly on the +first of the month. I know not whether it was owing to her +loitering on the way one month to an extent flesh and blood could +not bear, or because we had exhausted the penny library, but on a +day I conceived a glorious idea, or it was put into my head by my +mother, then desirous of making progress with her new clouty +hearthrug. The notion was nothing short of this, why should +I not write the tales myself? I did write them—in the +garret—but they by no means helped her to get on with her +work, for when I finished a chapter I bounded downstairs to read +it to her, and so short were the chapters, so ready was the pen, +that I was back with new manuscript before another clout had been +added to the rug. Authorship seemed, like her +bannock-baking, to consist of running between two points. +They were all tales of adventure (happiest is he who writes of +adventure), no characters were allowed within if I knew their +like in the flesh, the scene lay in unknown parts, desert +islands, enchanted gardens, with knights (none of your nights) on +black chargers, and round the first corner a lady selling +water-cress.</p> +<p>At twelve or thereabout I put the literary calling to bed for +a time, having gone to a school where cricket and football were +more esteemed, but during the year before I went to the +university, it woke up and I wrote great part of a three-volume +novel. The publisher replied that the sum for which he +would print it was a hundred and—however, that was not the +important point (I had sixpence): where he stabbed us both was in +writing that he considered me a ‘clever lady.’ +I replied stiffly that I was a gentleman, and since then I have +kept that manuscript concealed. I looked through it lately, +and, oh, but it is dull! I defy any one to read it.</p> +<p>The malignancy of publishers, however, could not turn me +back. From the day on which I first tasted blood in the +garret my mind was made up; there could be no hum-dreadful-drum +profession for me; literature was my game. It was not +highly thought of by those who wished me well. I remember +being asked by two maiden ladies, about the time I left the +university, what I was to be, and when I replied brazenly, +‘An author,’ they flung up their hands, and one +exclaimed reproachfully, ‘And you an M.A.!’ My +mother’s views at first were not dissimilar; for long she +took mine jestingly as something I would grow out of, and +afterwards they hurt her so that I tried to give them up. +To be a minister—that she thought was among the fairest +prospects, but she was a very ambitious woman, and sometimes she +would add, half scared at her appetite, that there were ministers +who had become professors, ‘but it was not canny to think +of such things.’</p> +<p>I had one person only on my side, an old tailor, one of the +fullest men I have known, and quite the best talker. He was +a bachelor (he told me all that is to be known about woman), a +lean man, pallid of face, his legs drawn up when he walked as if +he was ever carrying something in his lap; his walks were of the +shortest, from the tea-pot on the hob to the board on which he +stitched, from the board to the hob, and so to bed. He +might have gone out had the idea struck him, but in the years I +knew him, the last of his brave life, I think he was only in the +open twice, when he ‘flitted’—changed his room +for another hard by. I did not see him make these journeys, +but I seem to see him now, and he is somewhat dizzy in the odd +atmosphere; in one hand he carries a box-iron, he raises the +other, wondering what this is on his head, it is a hat; a faint +smell of singed cloth goes by with him. This man had heard +of my set of photographs of the poets and asked for a sight of +them, which led to our first meeting. I remember how he +spread them out on his board, and after looking long at them, +turned his gaze on me and said solemnly,</p> +<blockquote><p>What can I do to be for ever known,<br /> +And make the age to come my own?</p> +</blockquote> +<p>These lines of Cowley were new to me, but the sentiment was +not new, and I marvelled how the old tailor could see through me +so well. So it was strange to me to discover presently that +he had not been thinking of me at all, but of his own young days, +when that couplet sang in his head, and he, too, had thirsted to +set off for Grub Street, but was afraid, and while he hesitated +old age came, and then Death, and found him grasping a +box-iron.</p> +<p>I hurried home with the mouthful, but neighbours had dropped +in, and this was for her ears only, so I drew her to the stair, +and said imperiously,</p> +<blockquote><p>What can I do to be for ever known,<br /> +And make the age to come my own?</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It was an odd request for which to draw her from a tea-table, +and she must have been surprised, but I think she did not laugh, +and in after years she would repeat the lines fondly, with a +flush on her soft face. ‘That is the kind you would +like to be yourself!’ we would say in jest to her, and she +would reply almost passionately, ‘No, but I would be windy +of being his mother.’ It is possible that she could +have been his mother had that other son lived, he might have +managed it from sheer love of her, but for my part I can smile at +one of those two figures on the stair now, having long given up +the dream of being for ever known, and seeing myself more akin to +my friend, the tailor, for as he was found at the end on his +board, so I hope shall I be found at my handloom, doing honestly +the work that suits me best. Who should know so well as I +that it is but a handloom compared to the great guns that +reverberate through the age to come? But she who stood with +me on the stair that day was a very simple woman, accustomed all +her life to making the most of small things, and I weaved +sufficiently well to please her, which has been my only steadfast +ambition since I was a little boy.</p> +<p>Not less than mine became her desire that I should have my +way—but, ah, the iron seats in that park of horrible +repute, and that bare room at the top of many flights of +stairs! While I was away at college she drained all +available libraries for books about those who go to London to +live by the pen, and they all told the same shuddering +tale. London, which she never saw, was to her a monster +that licked up country youths as they stepped from the train; +there were the garrets in which they sat abject, and the park +seats where they passed the night. Those park seats were +the monster’s glaring eyes to her, and as I go by them now +she is nearer to me than when I am in any other part of +London. I daresay that when night comes, this Hyde Park +which is so gay by day, is haunted by the ghosts of many mothers, +who run, wild-eyed, from seat to seat, looking for their +sons.</p> +<p>But if we could dodge those dreary seats she longed to see me +try my luck, and I sought to exclude them from the picture by +drawing maps of London with Hyde Park left out. London was +as strange to me as to her, but long before I was shot upon it I +knew it by maps, and drew them more accurately than I could draw +them now. Many a time she and I took our jaunt together +through the map, and were most gleeful, popping into telegraph +offices to wire my father and sister that we should not be home +till late, winking to my books in lordly shop-windows, lunching +at restaurants (and remembering not to call it dinner), saying, +‘How do?’ to Mr. Alfred Tennyson when we passed him +in Regent Street, calling at publishers’ offices for +cheque, when ‘Will you take care of it, or shall I?’ +I asked gaily, and she would be certain to reply, +‘I’m thinking we’d better take it to the bank +and get the money,’ for she always felt surer of money than +of cheques; so to the bank we went (‘Two tens, and the rest +in gold’), and thence straightway (by cab) to the place +where you buy sealskin coats for middling old ladies. But +ere the laugh was done the park would come through the map like a +blot.</p> +<p>‘If you could only be sure of as much as would keep body +and soul together,’ my mother would say with a sigh.</p> +<p>‘With something over, mother, to send to you.’</p> +<p>‘You couldna expect that at the start.’</p> +<p>The wench I should have been courting now was journalism, that +grisette of literature who has a smile and a hand for all +beginners, welcoming them at the threshold, teaching them so much +that is worth knowing, introducing them to the other lady whom +they have worshipped from afar, showing them even how to woo her, +and then bidding them a bright God-speed—he were an ingrate +who, having had her joyous companionship, no longer flings her a +kiss as they pass. But though she bears no ill-will when +she is jilted, you must serve faithfully while you are hers, and +you must seek her out and make much of her, and, until you can +rely on her good-nature (note this), not a word about the other +lady. When at last she took me in I grew so fond of her +that I called her by the other’s name, and even now I think +at times that there was more fun in the little sister, but I +began by wooing her with contributions that were all +misfits. In an old book I find columns of notes about works +projected at this time, nearly all to consist of essays on deeply +uninteresting subjects; the lightest was to be a volume on the +older satirists, beginning with Skelton and Tom Nash—the +half of that manuscript still lies in a dusty chest—the +only story was about Mary Queen of Scots, who was also the +subject of many unwritten papers. Queen Mary seems to have +been luring me to my undoing ever since I saw Holyrood, and I +have a horrid fear that I may write that novel yet. That +anything could be written about my native place never struck +me. We had read somewhere that a novelist is better +equipped than most of his trade if he knows himself and one +woman, and my mother said, ‘You know yourself, for +everybody must know himself’ (there never was a woman who +knew less about herself than she), and she would add dolefully, +‘But I doubt I’m the only woman you know +well.’</p> +<p>‘Then I must make you my heroine,’ I said +lightly.</p> +<p>‘A gey auld-farrant-like heroine!’ she said, and +we both laughed at the notion—so little did we read the +future.</p> +<p>Thus it is obvious what were my qualifications when I was +rashly engaged as a leader-writer (it was my sister who saw the +advertisement) on an English provincial paper. At the +moment I was as uplifted as the others, for the chance had come +at last, with what we all regarded as a prodigious salary, but I +was wanted in the beginning of the week, and it suddenly struck +me that the leaders were the one thing I had always +skipped. Leaders! How were they written? what were +they about? My mother was already sitting triumphant among +my socks, and I durst not let her see me quaking. I retired +to ponder, and presently she came to me with the daily +paper. Which were the leaders? she wanted to know, so +evidently I could get no help from her. Had she any more +newspapers? I asked, and after rummaging, she produced a +few with which her boxes had been lined. Others, very +dusty, came from beneath carpets, and lastly a sooty bundle was +dragged down the chimney. Surrounded by these I sat down, +and studied how to become a journalist.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV—AN EDITOR</h2> +<p>A devout lady, to whom some friend had presented one of my +books, used to say when asked how she was getting on with it, +‘Sal, it’s dreary, weary, uphill work, but I’ve +wrastled through with tougher jobs in my time, and, please God, +I’ll wrastle through with this one.’ It was in +this spirit, I fear, though she never told me so, that my mother +wrestled for the next year or more with my leaders, and indeed I +was always genuinely sorry for the people I saw reading +them. In my spare hours I was trying journalism of another +kind and sending it to London, but nearly eighteen months elapsed +before there came to me, as unlooked for as a telegram, the +thought that there was something quaint about my native +place. A boy who found that a knife had been put into his +pocket in the night could not have been more surprised. A +few days afterwards I sent my mother a London evening paper with +an article entitled ‘An Auld Licht Community,’ and +they told me that when she saw the heading she laughed, because +there was something droll to her in the sight of the words Auld +Licht in print. For her, as for me, that newspaper was soon +to have the face of a friend. To this day I never pass its +placards in the street without shaking it by the hand, and she +used to sew its pages together as lovingly as though they were a +child’s frock; but let the truth be told, when she read +that first article she became alarmed, and fearing the talk of +the town, hid the paper from all eyes. For some time +afterwards, while I proudly pictured her showing this and similar +articles to all who felt an interest in me, she was really +concealing them fearfully in a bandbox on the garret stair. +And she wanted to know by return of post whether I was paid for +these articles as much as I was paid for real articles; when she +heard that I was paid better, she laughed again and had them out +of the bandbox for re-reading, and it cannot be denied that she +thought the London editor a fine fellow but slightly soft.</p> +<p>When I sent off that first sketch I thought I had exhausted +the subject, but our editor wrote that he would like something +more of the same, so I sent him a marriage, and he took it, and +then I tried him with a funeral, and he took it, and really it +began to look as if we had him. Now my mother might have +been discovered, in answer to certain excited letters, flinging +the bundle of undarned socks from her lap, and ‘going in +for literature’; she was racking her brains, by request, +for memories I might convert into articles, and they came to me +in letters which she dictated to my sisters. How well I +could hear her sayings between the lines: ‘But the +editor-man will never stand that, it’s perfect +blethers’—‘By this post it must go, I tell you; +we must take the editor when he’s hungry—we canna be +blamed for it, can we? he prints them of his free will, so the +wite is his’—‘But I’m near +terrified.—If London folk reads them we’re done +for.’ And I was sounded as to the advisability of +sending him a present of a lippie of shortbread, which was to be +her crafty way of getting round him. By this time, though +my mother and I were hundreds of miles apart, you may picture us +waving our hands to each other across country, and shouting +‘Hurrah!’ You may also picture the editor in +his office thinking he was behaving like a shrewd man of +business, and unconscious that up in the north there was an +elderly lady chuckling so much at him that she could scarcely +scrape the potatoes.</p> +<p>I was now able to see my mother again, and the park seats no +longer loomed so prominent in our map of London. Still, +there they were, and it was with an effort that she summoned up +courage to let me go. She feared changes, and who could +tell that the editor would continue to be kind? Perhaps +when he saw me—</p> +<p>She seemed to be very much afraid of his seeing me, and this, +I would point out, was a reflection on my appearance or my +manner.</p> +<p>No, what she meant was that I looked so young, and—and +that would take him aback, for had I not written as an aged +man?</p> +<p>‘But he knows my age, mother.’</p> +<p>‘I’m glad of that, but maybe he wouldna like you +when he saw you.’</p> +<p>‘Oh, it is my manner, then!’</p> +<p>‘I dinna say that, but—’</p> +<p>Here my sister would break in: ‘The short and the long +of it is just this, she thinks nobody has such manners as +herself. Can you deny it, you vain woman?’ My +mother would deny it vigorously.</p> +<p>‘You stand there,’ my sister would say with +affected scorn, ‘and tell me you don’t think you +could get the better of that man quicker than any of +us?’</p> +<p>‘Sal, I’m thinking I could manage him,’ says +my mother, with a chuckle.</p> +<p>‘How would you set about it?’</p> +<p>Then my mother would begin to laugh. ‘I would find +out first if he had a family, and then I would say they were the +finest family in London.’</p> +<p>‘Yes, that is just what you would do, you cunning +woman! But if he has no family?’</p> +<p>‘I would say what great men editors are!’</p> +<p>‘He would see through you.’</p> +<p>‘Not he!’</p> +<p>‘You don’t understand that what imposes on common +folk would never hoodwink an editor.’</p> +<p>‘That’s where you are wrong. Gentle or +simple, stupid or clever, the men are all alike in the hands of a +woman that flatters them.’</p> +<p>‘Ah, I’m sure there are better ways of getting +round an editor than that.’</p> +<p>‘I daresay there are,’ my mother would say with +conviction, ‘but if you try that plan you will never need +to try another.’</p> +<p>‘How artful you are, mother—you with your soft +face! Do you not think shame?’</p> +<p>‘Pooh!’ says my mother brazenly.</p> +<p>‘I can see the reason why you are so popular with +men.’</p> +<p>‘Ay, you can see it, but they never will.’</p> +<p>‘Well, how would you dress yourself if you were going to +that editor’s office?’</p> +<p>‘Of course I would wear my silk and my Sabbath +bonnet.’</p> +<p>‘It is you who are shortsighted now, mother. I +tell you, you would manage him better if you just put on your old +grey shawl and one of your bonny white mutches, and went in half +smiling and half timid and said, “I am the mother of him +that writes about the Auld Lichts, and I want you to promise that +he will never have to sleep in the open air.”’</p> +<p>But my mother would shake her head at this, and reply almost +hotly, ‘I tell you if I ever go into that man’s +office, I go in silk.’</p> +<p>I wrote and asked the editor if I should come to London, and +he said No, so I went, laden with charges from my mother to walk +in the middle of the street (they jump out on you as you are +turning a corner), never to venture forth after sunset, and +always to lock up everything (I who could never lock up anything, +except my heart in company). Thanks to this editor, for the +others would have nothing to say to me though I battered on all +their doors, she was soon able to sleep at nights without the +dread that I should be waking presently with the iron-work of +certain seats figured on my person, and what relieved her very +much was that I had begun to write as if Auld Lichts were not the +only people I knew of. So long as I confined myself to them +she had a haunting fear that, even though the editor remained +blind to his best interests, something would one day go crack +within me (as the mainspring of a watch breaks) and my pen refuse +to write for evermore. ‘Ay, I like the article +brawly,’ she would say timidly, ‘but I’m +doubting it’s the last—I always have a sort of terror +the new one may be the last,’ and if many days elapsed +before the arrival of another article her face would say +mournfully, ‘The blow has fallen—he can think of +nothing more to write about.’ If I ever shared her +fears I never told her so, and the articles that were not Scotch +grew in number until there were hundreds of them, all carefully +preserved by her: they were the only thing in the house that, +having served one purpose, she did not convert into something +else, yet they could give her uneasy moments. This was +because I nearly always assumed a character when I wrote; I must +be a country squire, or an undergraduate, or a butler, or a +member of the House of Lords, or a dowager, or a lady called +Sweet Seventeen, or an engineer in India, else was my pen +clogged, and though this gave my mother certain fearful joys, +causing her to laugh unexpectedly (so far as my articles were +concerned she nearly always laughed in the wrong place), it also +scared her. Much to her amusement the editor continued to +prefer the Auld Licht papers, however, as was proved (to those +who knew him) by his way of thinking that the others would pass +as they were, while he sent these back and asked me to make them +better. Here again she came to my aid. I had said +that the row of stockings were hung on a string by the fire, +which was a recollection of my own, but she could tell me whether +they were hung upside down. She became quite skilful at +sending or giving me (for now I could be with her half the year) +the right details, but still she smiled at the editor, and in her +gay moods she would say, ‘I was fifteen when I got my first +pair of elastic-sided boots. Tell him my charge for this +important news is two pounds ten.’</p> +<p>‘Ay, but though we’re doing well, it’s +no’ the same as if they were a book with your name on +it.’ So the ambitious woman would say with a sigh, +and I did my best to turn the Auld Licht sketches into a book +with my name on it. Then perhaps we understood most fully +how good a friend our editor had been, for just as I had been +able to find no well-known magazine—and I think I tried +all—which would print any article or story about the poor +of my native land, so now the publishers, Scotch and English, +refused to accept the book as a gift. I was willing to +present it to them, but they would have it in no guise; there +seemed to be a blight on everything that was Scotch. I +daresay we sighed, but never were collaborators more prepared for +rejection, and though my mother might look wistfully at the +scorned manuscript at times and murmur, ‘You poor cold +little crittur shut away in a drawer, are you dead or just +sleeping?’ she had still her editor to say grace +over. And at last publishers, sufficiently daring and far +more than sufficiently generous, were found for us by a dear +friend, who made one woman very ‘uplifted.’ He +also was an editor, and had as large a part in making me a writer +of books as the other in determining what the books should be +about.</p> +<p>Now that I was an author I must get into a club. But you +should have heard my mother on clubs! She knew of none save +those to which you subscribe a pittance weekly in anticipation of +rainy days, and the London clubs were her scorn. Often I +heard her on them—she raised her voice to make me hear, +whichever room I might be in, and it was when she was sarcastic +that I skulked the most: ‘Thirty pounds is what he will +have to pay the first year, and ten pounds a year after +that. You think it’s a lot o’ siller? Oh +no, you’re mista’en—it’s nothing +ava. For the third part of thirty pounds you could rent a +four-roomed house, but what is a four-roomed house, what is +thirty pounds, compared to the glory of being a member of a +club? Where does the glory come in? Sal, you needna +ask me, I’m just a doited auld stock that never set foot in +a club, so it’s little I ken about glory. But I may +tell you if you bide in London and canna become member of a club, +the best you can do is to tie a rope round your neck and slip out +of the world. What use are they? Oh, they’re +terrible useful. You see it doesna do for a man in London +to eat his dinner in his lodgings. Other men shake their +heads at him. He maun away to his club if he is to be +respected. Does he get good dinners at the club? Oh, +they cow! You get no common beef at clubs; there is a manzy +of different things all sauced up to be unlike themsels. +Even the potatoes daurna look like potatoes. If the food in +a club looks like what it is, the members run about, flinging up +their hands and crying, “Woe is me!” Then this +is another thing, you get your letters sent to the club instead +of to your lodgings. You see you would get them sooner at +your lodgings, and you may have to trudge weary miles to the club +for them, but that’s a great advantage, and cheap at thirty +pounds, is it no’? I wonder they can do it at the +price.’</p> +<p>My wisest policy was to remain downstairs when these withering +blasts were blowing, but probably I went up in self-defence.</p> +<p>‘I never saw you so pugnacious before, +mother.’</p> +<p>‘Oh,’ she would reply promptly, ‘you canna +expect me to be sharp in the uptake when I am no’ a member +of a club.’</p> +<p>‘But the difficulty is in becoming a member. They +are very particular about whom they elect, and I daresay I shall +not get in.’</p> +<p>‘Well, I’m but a poor crittur (not being member of +a club), but I think I can tell you to make your mind easy on +that head. You’ll get in, I’se uphaud—and +your thirty pounds will get in, too.’</p> +<p>‘If I get in it will be because the editor is supporting +me.’</p> +<p>‘It’s the first ill thing I ever heard of +him.’</p> +<p>‘You don’t think he is to get any of the thirty +pounds, do you?’</p> +<p>‘’Deed if I did I should be better pleased, for he +has been a good friend to us, but what maddens me is that every +penny of it should go to those bare-faced scoundrels.’</p> +<p>‘What bare-faced scoundrels?’</p> +<p>‘Them that have the club.’</p> +<p>‘But all the members have the club between +them.’</p> +<p>‘Havers! I’m no’ to be catched with +chaff.’</p> +<p>‘But don’t you believe me?’</p> +<p>‘I believe they’ve filled your head with their +stories till you swallow whatever they tell you. If the +place belongs to the members, why do they have to pay thirty +pounds?’</p> +<p>‘To keep it going.’</p> +<p>‘They dinna have to pay for their dinners, +then?’</p> +<p>‘Oh yes, they have to pay extra for dinner.’</p> +<p>‘And a gey black price, I’m thinking.’</p> +<p>‘Well, five or six shillings.’</p> +<p>‘Is that all? Losh, it’s nothing, I wonder +they dinna raise the price.’</p> +<p>Nevertheless my mother was of a sex that scorned prejudice, +and, dropping sarcasm, she would at times cross-examine me as if +her mind was not yet made up. ‘Tell me this, if you +were to fall ill, would you be paid a weekly allowance out of the +club?’</p> +<p>No, it was not that kind of club.</p> +<p>‘I see. Well, I am just trying to find out what +kind of club it is. Do you get anything out of it for +accidents?’</p> +<p>Not a penny.</p> +<p>‘Anything at New Year’s time?’</p> +<p>Not so much as a goose.</p> +<p>‘Is there any one mortal thing you get free out of that +club?’</p> +<p>There was not one mortal thing.</p> +<p>‘And thirty pounds is what you pay for this?’</p> +<p>If the committee elected me.</p> +<p>‘How many are in the committee?’</p> +<p>About a dozen, I thought.</p> +<p>‘A dozen! Ay, ay, that makes two pound ten +apiece.’</p> +<p>When I was elected I thought it wisdom to send my sister +upstairs with the news. My mother was ironing, and made no +comment, unless with the iron, which I could hear rattling more +violently in its box. Presently I heard her +laughing—at me undoubtedly, but she had recovered control +over her face before she came downstairs to congratulate me +sarcastically. This was grand news, she said without a +twinkle, and I must write and thank the committee, the noble +critturs. I saw behind her mask, and maintained a dignified +silence, but she would have another shot at me. ‘And +tell them,’ she said from the door, ‘you were +doubtful of being elected, but your auld mother had aye a mighty +confidence they would snick you in.’ I heard her +laughing softly as she went up the stair, but though I had +provided her with a joke I knew she was burning to tell the +committee what she thought of them.</p> +<p>Money, you see, meant so much to her, though even at her +poorest she was the most cheerful giver. In the old days, +when the article arrived, she did not read it at once, she first +counted the lines to discover what we should get for it—she +and the daughter who was so dear to her had calculated the +payment per line, and I remember once overhearing a discussion +between them about whether that sub-title meant another +sixpence. Yes, she knew the value of money; she had always +in the end got the things she wanted, but now she could get them +more easily, and it turned her simple life into a fairy +tale. So often in those days she went down suddenly upon +her knees; we would come upon her thus, and go away +noiselessly. After her death I found that she had preserved +in a little box, with a photograph of me as a child, the +envelopes which had contained my first cheques. There was a +little ribbon round them.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER V—A DAY OF HER LIFE</h2> +<p>I should like to call back a day of her life as it was at this +time, when her spirit was as bright as ever and her hand as +eager, but she was no longer able to do much work. It +should not be difficult, for she repeated herself from day to day +and yet did it with a quaint unreasonableness that was ever +yielding fresh delight. Our love for her was such that we +could easily tell what she would do in given circumstances, but +she had always a new way of doing it.</p> +<p>Well, with break of day she wakes and sits up in bed and is +standing in the middle of the room. So nimble was she in +the mornings (one of our troubles with her) that these three +actions must be considered as one; she is on the floor before you +have time to count them. She has strict orders not to rise +until her fire is lit, and having broken them there is a demure +elation on her face. The question is what to do before she +is caught and hurried to bed again. Her fingers are +tingling to prepare the breakfast; she would dearly love to +black-lead the grate, but that might rouse her daughter from +whose side she has slipped so cunningly. She catches sight +of the screen at the foot of the bed, and immediately her soft +face becomes very determined. To guard her from draughts +the screen had been brought here from the lordly east room, where +it was of no use whatever. But in her opinion it was too +beautiful for use; it belonged to the east room, where she could +take pleasant peeps at it; she had objected to its removal, even +become low-spirited. Now is her opportunity. The +screen is an unwieldy thing, but still as a mouse she carries it, +and they are well under weigh when it strikes against the +gas-bracket in the passage. Next moment a reproachful hand +arrests her. She is challenged with being out of bed, she +denies it—standing in the passage. Meekly or +stubbornly she returns to bed, and it is no satisfaction to you +that you can say, ‘Well, well, of all the women!’ and +so on, or ‘Surely you knew that the screen was brought here +to protect you,’ for she will reply scornfully, ‘Who +was touching the screen?’</p> +<p>By this time I have wakened (I am through the wall) and join +them anxiously: so often has my mother been taken ill in the +night that the slightest sound from her room rouses the +house. She is in bed again, looking as if she had never +been out of it, but I know her and listen sternly to the tale of +her misdoings. She is not contrite. Yes, maybe she +did promise not to venture forth on the cold floors of daybreak, +but she had risen for a moment only, and we just t’neaded +her with our talk about draughts—there were no such things +as draughts in her young days—and it is more than she can +do (here she again attempts to rise but we hold her down) to lie +there and watch that beautiful screen being spoilt. I reply +that the beauty of the screen has ever been its miserable defect: +ho, there! for a knife with which to spoil its beauty and make +the bedroom its fitting home. As there is no knife handy, +my foot will do; I raise my foot, and then—she sees that it +is bare, she cries to me excitedly to go back to bed lest I catch +cold. For though, ever careless of herself, she will wander +the house unshod, and tell us not to talk havers when we chide +her, the sight of one of us similarly negligent rouses her +anxiety at once. She is willing now to sign any vow if only +I will take my bare feet back to bed, but probably she is soon +after me in hers to make sure that I am nicely covered up.</p> +<p>It is scarcely six o’clock, and we have all promised to +sleep for another hour, but in ten minutes she is sure that eight +has struck (house disgraced), or that if it has not, something is +wrong with the clock. Next moment she is captured on her +way downstairs to wind up the clock. So evidently we must +be up and doing, and as we have no servant, my sister disappears +into the kitchen, having first asked me to see that ‘that +woman’ lies still, and ‘that woman’ calls out +that she always does lie still, so what are we blethering +about?</p> +<p>She is up now, and dressed in her thick maroon wrapper; over +her shoulders (lest she should stray despite our watchfulness) is +a shawl, not placed there by her own hands, and on her head a +delicious mutch. O that I could sing the pæan of the +white mutch (and the dirge of the elaborate black cap) from the +day when she called witchcraft to her aid and made it out of +snow-flakes, and the dear worn hands that washed it tenderly in a +basin, and the starching of it, and the finger-iron for its +exquisite frills that looked like curls of sugar, and the sweet +bands with which it tied beneath the chin! The honoured +snowy mutch, how I love to see it smiling to me from the doors +and windows of the poor; it is always smiling—sometimes +maybe a wavering wistful smile, as if a tear-drop lay hidden +among, the frills. A hundred times I have taken the +characterless cap from my mother’s head and put the mutch +in its place and tied the bands beneath her chin, while she +protested but was well pleased. For in her heart she knew +what suited her best and would admit it, beaming, when I put a +mirror into her hands and told her to look; but nevertheless the +cap cost no less than so-and-so, whereas—Was that a knock +at the door? She is gone, to put on her cap!</p> +<p>She begins the day by the fireside with the New Testament in +her hands, an old volume with its loose pages beautifully +refixed, and its covers sewn and resewn by her, so that you would +say it can never fall to pieces. It is mine now, and to me +the black threads with which she stitched it are as part of the +contents. Other books she read in the ordinary manner, but +this one differently, her lips moving with each word as if she +were reading aloud, and her face very solemn. The Testament +lies open on her lap long after she has ceased to read, and the +expression of her face has not changed.</p> +<p>I have seen her reading other books early in the day but never +without a guilty look on her face, for she thought reading was +scarce respectable until night had come. She spends the +forenoon in what she calls doing nothing, which may consist in +stitching so hard that you would swear she was an over-worked +seamstress at it for her life, or you will find her on a table +with nails in her mouth, and anon she has to be chased from the +garret (she has suddenly decided to change her curtains), or she +is under the bed searching for band-boxes and asking sternly +where we have put that bonnet. On the whole she is behaving +in a most exemplary way to-day (not once have we caught her +trying to go out into the washing-house), and we compliment her +at dinner-time, partly because she deserves it, and partly to +make her think herself so good that she will eat something, just +to maintain her new character. I question whether one hour +of all her life was given to thoughts of food; in her great days +to eat seemed to her to be waste of time, and afterwards she only +ate to boast of it, as something she had done to please us. +She seldom remembered whether she had dined, but always presumed +she had, and while she was telling me in all good faith what the +meal consisted of, it might be brought in. When in London I +had to hear daily what she was eating, and perhaps she had +refused all dishes until they produced the pen and ink. +These were flourished before her, and then she would say with a +sigh, ‘Tell him I am to eat an egg.’ But they +were not so easily deceived; they waited, pen in hand, until the +egg was eaten.</p> +<p>She never ‘went for a walk’ in her life. +Many long trudges she had as a girl when she carried her +father’s dinner in a flagon to the country place where he +was at work, but to walk with no end save the good of your health +seemed a very droll proceeding to her. In her young days, +she was positive, no one had ever gone for a walk, and she never +lost the belief that it was an absurdity introduced by a new +generation with too much time on their hands. That they +enjoyed it she could not believe; it was merely a form of showing +off, and as they passed her window she would remark to herself +with blasting satire, ‘Ay, Jeames, are you off for your +walk?’ and add fervently, ‘Rather you than +me!’ I was one of those who walked, and though she +smiled, and might drop a sarcastic word when she saw me putting +on my boots, it was she who had heated them in preparation for my +going. The arrangement between us was that she should lie +down until my return, and to ensure its being carried out I saw +her in bed before I started, but with the bang of the door she +would be at the window to watch me go: there is one spot on the +road where a thousand times I have turned to wave my stick to +her, while she nodded and smiled and kissed her hand to me. +That kissing of the hand was the one English custom she had +learned.</p> +<p>In an hour or so I return, and perhaps find her in bed, +according to promise, but still I am suspicious. The way to +her detection is circuitous.</p> +<p>‘I’ll need to be rising now,’ she says, with +a yawn that may be genuine.</p> +<p>‘How long have you been in bed?’</p> +<p>‘You saw me go.’</p> +<p>‘And then I saw you at the window. Did you go +straight back to bed?’</p> +<p>‘Surely I had that much sense.’</p> +<p>‘The truth!’</p> +<p>‘I might have taken a look at the clock +first.’</p> +<p>‘It is a terrible thing to have a mother who +prevaricates. Have you been lying down ever since I +left?’</p> +<p>‘Thereabout.’</p> +<p>‘What does that mean exactly?’</p> +<p>‘Off and on.’</p> +<p>‘Have you been to the garret?’</p> +<p>‘What should I do in the garret?’</p> +<p>‘But have you?’</p> +<p>‘I might just have looked up the garret +stair.’</p> +<p>‘You have been redding up the garret again!’</p> +<p>‘Not what you could call a redd up.’</p> +<p>‘O, woman, woman, I believe you have not been in bed at +all!’</p> +<p>‘You see me in it.’</p> +<p>‘My opinion is that you jumped into bed when you heard +me open the door.’</p> +<p>‘Havers.’</p> +<p>‘Did you?’</p> +<p>‘No.’</p> +<p>‘Well, then, when you heard me at the gate?’</p> +<p>‘It might have been when I heard you at the +gate.’</p> +<p>As daylight goes she follows it with her sewing to the window, +and gets another needleful out of it, as one may run after a +departed visitor for a last word, but now the gas is lit, and no +longer is it shameful to sit down to literature. If the +book be a story by George Eliot or Mrs. Oliphant, her favourites +(and mine) among women novelists, or if it be a Carlyle, and we +move softly, she will read, entranced, for hours. Her +delight in Carlyle was so well known that various good people +would send her books that contained a page about him; she could +place her finger on any passage wanted in the biography as +promptly as though she were looking for some article in her own +drawer, and given a date she was often able to tell you what they +were doing in Cheyne Row that day. Carlyle, she decided, +was not so much an ill man to live with as one who needed a deal +of managing, but when I asked if she thought she could have +managed him she only replied with a modest smile that meant +‘Oh no!’ but had the face of ‘Sal, I would have +liked to try.’</p> +<p>One lady lent her some scores of Carlyle letters that have +never been published, and crabbed was the writing, but though my +mother liked to have our letters read aloud to her, she read +every one of these herself, and would quote from them in her +talk. Side by side with the Carlyle letters, which show him +in his most gracious light, were many from his wife to a friend, +and in one of these a romantic adventure is described—I +quote from memory, and it is a poor memory compared to my +mother’s, which registered everything by a method of her +own: ‘What might be the age of Bell Tibbits? Well, +she was born the week I bought the boiler, so she’ll be +one-and-fifty (no less!) come Martinmas.’ Mrs. +Carlyle had got into the train at a London station and was +feeling very lonely, for the journey to Scotland lay before her +and no one had come to see her off. Then, just as the train +was starting, a man jumped into the carriage, to her regret until +she saw his face, when, behold, they were old friends, and the +last time they met (I forget how many years before) he had asked +her to be his wife. He was very nice, and if I remember +aright, saw her to her journey’s end, though he had +intended to alight at some half-way place. I call this an +adventure, and I am sure it seemed to my mother to be the most +touching and memorable adventure that can come into a +woman’s life. ‘You see he hadna forgot,’ +she would say proudly, as if this was a compliment in which all +her sex could share, and on her old tender face shone some of the +elation with which Mrs. Carlyle wrote that letter.</p> +<p>But there were times, she held, when Carlyle must have made +his wife a glorious woman. ‘As when?’ I might +inquire.</p> +<p>‘When she keeked in at his study door and said to +herself, “The whole world is ringing with his fame, and he +is my man!”’</p> +<p>‘And then,’ I might point out, ‘he would +roar to her to shut the door.’</p> +<p>‘Pooh!’ said my mother, ‘a man’s roar +is neither here nor there.’ But her verdict as a +whole was, ‘I would rather have been his mother than his +wife.’</p> +<p>So we have got her into her chair with the Carlyles, and all +is well. Furthermore, ‘to mak siccar,’ my +father has taken the opposite side of the fireplace and is deep +in the latest five columns of Gladstone, who is his +Carlyle. He is to see that she does not slip away fired by +a conviction, which suddenly overrides her pages, that the +kitchen is going to rack and ruin for want of her, and she is to +recall him to himself should he put his foot in the fire and keep +it there, forgetful of all save his hero’s eloquence. +(We were a family who needed a deal of watching.) She is +not interested in what Mr. Gladstone has to say; indeed she could +never be brought to look upon politics as of serious concern for +grown folk (a class in which she scarcely included man), and she +gratefully gave up reading ‘leaders’ the day I ceased +to write them. But like want of reasonableness, a love for +having the last word, want of humour and the like, politics were +in her opinion a mannish attribute to be tolerated, and Gladstone +was the name of the something which makes all our sex such queer +characters. She had a profound faith in him as an aid to +conversation, and if there were silent men in the company would +give him to them to talk about, precisely as she divided a cake +among children. And then, with a motherly smile, she would +leave them to gorge on him. But in the idolising of +Gladstone she recognised, nevertheless, a certain inevitability, +and would no more have tried to contend with it than to sweep a +shadow off the floor. Gladstone was, and there was an end +of it in her practical philosophy. Nor did she accept him +coldly; like a true woman she sympathised with those who suffered +severely, and they knew it and took counsel of her in the hour of +need. I remember one ardent Gladstonian who, as a general +election drew near, was in sore straits indeed, for he +disbelieved in Home Rule, and yet how could he vote against +‘Gladstone’s man’? His distress was so +real that it gave him a hang-dog appearance. He put his +case gloomily before her, and until the day of the election she +riddled him with sarcasm; I think he only went to her because he +found a mournful enjoyment in seeing a false Gladstonian +tortured.</p> +<p>It was all such plain-sailing for him, she pointed out; he did +not like this Home Rule, and therefore he must vote against +it.</p> +<p>She put it pitiful clear, he replied with a groan.</p> +<p>But she was like another woman to him when he appeared before +her on his way to the polling-booth.</p> +<p>‘This is a watery Sabbath to you, I’m +thinking,’ she said sympathetically, but without dropping +her wires—for Home Rule or no Home Rule that stocking-foot +must be turned before twelve o’clock.</p> +<p>A watery Sabbath means a doleful day, and ‘A watery +Sabbath it is,’ he replied with feeling. A silence +followed, broken only by the click of the wires. Now and +again he would mutter, ‘Ay, well, I’ll be going to +vote—little did I think the day would come,’ and so +on, but if he rose it was only to sit down again, and at last she +crossed over to him and said softly, (no sarcasm in her voice +now), ‘Away with you, and vote for Gladstone’s +man!’ He jumped up and made off without a word, but +from the east window we watched him strutting down the +brae. I laughed, but she said, ‘I’m no sure +that it’s a laughing matter,’ and afterwards, +‘I would have liked fine to be that Gladstone’s +mother.’</p> +<p>It is nine o’clock now, a quarter-past nine, half-past +nine—all the same moment to me, for I am at a sentence that +will not write. I know, though I can’t hear, what my +sister has gone upstairs to say to my mother:—</p> +<p>‘I was in at him at nine, and he said, “In five +minutes,” so I put the steak on the brander, but I’ve +been in thrice since then, and every time he says, “In five +minutes,” and when I try to take the table-cover off, he +presses his elbows hard on it, and growls. His supper will +be completely spoilt.’</p> +<p>‘Oh, that weary writing!’</p> +<p>‘I can do no more, mother, so you must come down and +stop him.’</p> +<p>‘I have no power over him,’ my mother says, but +she rises smiling, and presently she is opening my door.</p> +<p>‘In five minutes!’ I cry, but when I see that it +is she I rise and put my arm round her. ‘What a full +basket!’ she says, looking at the waste-paper basket, which +contains most of my work of the night and with a dear gesture she +lifts up a torn page and kisses it. ‘Poor +thing,’ she says to it, ‘and you would have liked so +fine to be printed!’ and she puts her hand over my desk to +prevent my writing more.</p> +<p>‘In the last five minutes,’ I begin, ‘one +can often do more than in the first hour.’</p> +<p>‘Many a time I’ve said it in my young days,’ +she says slowly.</p> +<p>‘And proved it, too!’ cries a voice from the door, +the voice of one who was prouder of her even than I; it is true, +and yet almost unbelievable, that any one could have been prouder +of her than I.</p> +<p>‘But those days are gone,’ my mother says +solemnly, ‘gone to come back no more. You’ll +put by your work now, man, and have your supper, and then +you’ll come up and sit beside your mother for a whiley, for +soon you’ll be putting her away in the +kirk-yard.’</p> +<p>I hear such a little cry from near the door.</p> +<p>So my mother and I go up the stair together. ‘We +have changed places,’ she says; ‘that was just how I +used to help you up, but I’m the bairn now.’</p> +<p>She brings out the Testament again; it was always lying within +reach; it is the lock of hair she left me when she died. +And when she has read for a long time she ‘gives me a +look,’ as we say in the north, and I go out, to leave her +alone with God. She had been but a child when her mother +died, and so she fell early into the way of saying her prayers +with no earthly listener. Often and often I have found her +on her knees, but I always went softly away, closing the +door. I never heard her pray, but I know very well how she +prayed, and that, when that door was shut, there was not a day in +God’s sight between the worn woman and the little +child.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI—HER MAID OF ALL WORK</h2> +<p>And sometimes I was her maid of all work.</p> +<p>It is early morn, and my mother has come noiselessly into my +room. I know it is she, though my eyes are shut, and I am +only half awake. Perhaps I was dreaming of her, for I +accept her presence without surprise, as if in the awakening I +had but seen her go out at one door to come in at another. +But she is speaking to herself.</p> +<p>‘I’m sweer to waken him—I doubt he was +working late—oh, that weary writing—no, I maunna +waken him.’</p> +<p>I start up. She is wringing her hands. ‘What +is wrong?’ I cry, but I know before she answers. My +sister is down with one of the headaches against which even she +cannot fight, and my mother, who bears physical pain as if it +were a comrade, is most woebegone when her daughter is the +sufferer. ‘And she winna let me go down the stair to +make a cup of tea for her,’ she groans.</p> +<p>‘I will soon make the tea, mother.’</p> +<p>‘Will you?’ she says eagerly. It is what she +has come to me for, but ‘It is a pity to rouse you,’ +she says.</p> +<p>‘And I will take charge of the house to-day, and light +the fires and wash the dishes—’</p> +<p>‘Na, oh no; no, I couldna ask that of you, and you an +author.’</p> +<p>‘It won’t be the first time, mother, since I was +an author.’</p> +<p>‘More like the fiftieth!’ she says almost +gleefully, so I have begun well, for to keep up her spirits is +the great thing to-day.</p> +<p>Knock at the door. It is the baker. I take in the +bread, looking so sternly at him that he dare not smile.</p> +<p>Knock at the door. It is the postman. (I hope he did not +see that I had the lid of the kettle in my other hand.)</p> +<p>Furious knocking in a remote part. This means that the +author is in the coal cellar.</p> +<p>Anon I carry two breakfasts upstairs in triumph. I enter +the bedroom like no mere humdrum son, but after the manner of the +Glasgow waiter. I must say more about him. He had +been my mother’s one waiter, the only manservant she ever +came in contact with, and they had met in a Glasgow hotel which +she was eager to see, having heard of the monstrous things, and +conceived them to resemble country inns with another twelve +bedrooms. I remember how she beamed—yet tried to look +as if it was quite an ordinary experience—when we alighted +at the hotel door, but though she said nothing I soon read +disappointment in her face. She knew how I was exulting in +having her there, so would not say a word to damp me, but I +craftily drew it out of her. No, she was very comfortable, +and the house was grand beyond speech, but—but—where +was he? he had not been very hearty. ‘He’ was +the landlord; she had expected him to receive us at the door and +ask if we were in good health and how we had left the others, and +then she would have asked him if his wife was well and how many +children they had, after which we should all have sat down +together to dinner. Two chambermaids came into her room and +prepared it without a single word to her about her journey or on +any other subject, and when they had gone, ‘They are two +haughty misses,’ said my mother with spirit. But what +she most resented was the waiter with his swagger black suit and +short quick steps and the ‘towel’ over his arm. +Without so much as a ‘Welcome to Glasgow!’ he showed +us to our seats, not the smallest acknowledgment of our kindness +in giving such munificent orders did we draw from him, he hovered +around the table as if it would be unsafe to leave us with his +knives and forks (he should have seen her knives and forks), when +we spoke to each other he affected not to hear, we might laugh +but this uppish fellow would not join in. We retired, +crushed, and he had the final impudence to open the door for +us. But though this hurt my mother at the time, the humour +of our experiences filled her on reflection, and in her own house +she would describe them with unction, sometimes to those who had +been in many hotels, often to others who had been in none, and +whoever were her listeners she made them laugh, though not always +at the same thing.</p> +<p>So now when I enter the bedroom with the tray, on my arm is +that badge of pride, the towel; and I approach with prim steps to +inform Madam that breakfast is ready, and she puts on the society +manner and addresses me as ‘Sir,’ and asks with cruel +sarcasm for what purpose (except to boast) I carry the towel, and +I say ‘Is there anything more I can do for Madam?’ +and Madam replies that there is one more thing I can do, and that +is, eat her breakfast for her. But of this I take no +notice, for my object is to fire her with the spirit of the game, +so that she eats unwittingly.</p> +<p>Now that I have washed up the breakfast things I should be at +my writing, and I am anxious to be at it, as I have an idea in my +head, which, if it is of any value, has almost certainly been put +there by her. But dare I venture? I know that the +house has not been properly set going yet, there are beds to +make, the exterior of the teapot is fair, but suppose some one +were to look inside? What a pity I knocked over the +flour-barrel! Can I hope that for once my mother will +forget to inquire into these matters? Is my sister willing +to let disorder reign until to-morrow? I determine to risk +it. Perhaps I have been at work for half an hour when I +hear movements overhead. One or other of them is wondering +why the house is so quiet. I rattle the tongs, but even +this does not satisfy them, so back into the desk go my papers, +and now what you hear is not the scrape of a pen but the rinsing +of pots and pans, or I am making beds, and making them +thoroughly, because after I am gone my mother will come (I know +her) and look suspiciously beneath the coverlet.</p> +<p>The kitchen is now speckless, not an unwashed platter in +sight, unless you look beneath the table. I feel that I +have earned time for an hour’s writing at last, and at it I +go with vigour. One page, two pages, really I am making +progress, when—was that a door opening? But I have my +mother’s light step on the brain, so I ‘yoke’ +again, and next moment she is beside me. She has not +exactly left her room, she gives me to understand; but suddenly a +conviction had come to her that I was writing without a warm mat +at my feet. She carries one in her hands. Now that +she is here she remains for a time, and though she is in the +arm-chair by the fire, where she sits bolt upright (she loved to +have cushions on the unused chairs, but detested putting her back +against them), and I am bent low over my desk, I know that +contentment and pity are struggling for possession of her face: +contentment wins when she surveys her room, pity when she looks +at me. Every article of furniture, from the chairs that +came into the world with me and have worn so much better, though +I was new and they were second-hand, to the mantle-border of +fashionable design which she sewed in her seventieth year, having +picked up the stitch in half a lesson, has its story of fight and +attainment for her, hence her satisfaction; but she sighs at +sight of her son, dipping and tearing, and chewing the loathly +pen.</p> +<p>‘Oh, that weary writing!’</p> +<p>In vain do I tell her that writing is as pleasant to me as +ever was the prospect of a tremendous day’s ironing to her; +that (to some, though not to me) new chapters are as easy to turn +out as new bannocks. No, she maintains, for one bannock is +the marrows of another, while chapters—and then, perhaps, +her eyes twinkle, and says she saucily, ‘But, sal, you may +be right, for sometimes your bannocks are as alike as +mine!’</p> +<p>Or I may be roused from my writing by her cry that I am making +strange faces again. It is my contemptible weakness that if +I say a character smiled vacuously, I must smile vacuously; if he +frowns or leers, I frown or leer; if he is a coward or given to +contortions, I cringe, or twist my legs until I have to stop +writing to undo the knot. I bow with him, eat with him, and +gnaw my moustache with him. If the character be a lady with +an exquisite laugh, I suddenly terrify you by laughing +exquisitely. One reads of the astounding versatility of an +actor who is stout and lean on the same evening, but what is he +to the novelist who is a dozen persons within the hour? +Morally, I fear, we must deteriorate—but this is a subject +I may wisely edge away from.</p> +<p>We always spoke to each other in broad Scotch (I think in it +still), but now and again she would use a word that was new to +me, or I might hear one of her contemporaries use it. Now +is my opportunity to angle for its meaning. If I ask, +boldly, what was chat word she used just now, something like +‘bilbie’ or ‘silvendy’? she blushes, and +says she never said anything so common, or hoots! it is some +auld-farrant word about which she can tell me nothing. But +if in the course of conversation I remark casually, ‘Did he +find bilbie?’ or ‘Was that quite silvendy?’ +(though the sense of the question is vague to me) she falls into +the trap, and the words explain themselves in her replies. +Or maybe to-day she sees whither I am leading her, and such is +her sensitiveness that she is quite hurt. The humour goes +out of her face (to find bilbie in some more silvendy spot), and +her reproachful eyes—but now I am on the arm of her chair, +and we have made it up. Nevertheless, I shall get no more +old-world Scotch out of her this forenoon, she weeds her talk +determinedly, and it is as great a falling away as when the mutch +gives place to the cap.</p> +<p>I am off for my afternoon walk, and she has promised to bar +the door behind me and open it to none. When I +return,—well, the door is still barred, but she is looking +both furtive and elated. I should say that she is burning +to tell me something, but cannot tell it without exposing +herself. Has she opened the door, and if so, why? I +don’t ask, but I watch. It is she who is sly now.</p> +<p>‘Have you been in the east room since you came +in?’ she asks, with apparent indifference.</p> +<p>‘No; why do you ask?’</p> +<p>‘Oh, I just thought you might have looked in.’</p> +<p>‘Is there anything new there?’</p> +<p>‘I dinna say there is, but—but just go and +see.’</p> +<p>‘There can’t be anything new if you kept the door +barred,’ I say cleverly.</p> +<p>This crushes her for a moment; but her eagerness that I should +see is greater than her fear. I set off for the east room, +and she follows, affecting humility, but with triumph in her +eye. How often those little scenes took place! I was +never told of the new purchase, I was lured into its presence, +and then she waited timidly for my start of surprise.</p> +<p>‘Do you see it?’ she says anxiously, and I see it, +and hear it, for this time it is a bran-new wicker chair, of the +kind that whisper to themselves for the first six months.</p> +<p>‘A going-about body was selling them in a cart,’ +my mother begins, and what followed presents itself to my eyes +before she can utter another word. Ten minutes at the least +did she stand at the door argy-bargying with that man. But +it would be cruelty to scold a woman so uplifted.</p> +<p>‘Fifteen shillings he wanted,’ she cries, +‘but what do you think I beat him down to?’</p> +<p>‘Seven and sixpence?’</p> +<p>She claps her hands with delight. ‘Four shillings, +as I’m a living woman!’ she crows: never was a woman +fonder of a bargain.</p> +<p>I gaze at the purchase with the amazement expected of me, and +the chair itself crinkles and shudders to hear what it went for +(or is it merely chuckling at her?). ‘And the man +said it cost himself five shillings,’ my mother continues +exultantly. You would have thought her the hardest person +had not a knock on the wall summoned us about this time to my +sister’s side. Though in bed she has been listening, +and this is what she has to say, in a voice that makes my mother +very indignant, ‘You drive a bargain! I’m +thinking ten shillings was nearer what you paid.’</p> +<p>‘Four shillings to a penny!’ says my mother.</p> +<p>‘I daresay,’ says my sister; ‘but after you +paid him the money I heard you in the little bedroom press. +What were you doing there?’</p> +<p>My mother winces. ‘I may have given him a present +of an old topcoat,’ she falters. ‘He looked +ill-happit. But that was after I made the +bargain.’</p> +<p>‘Were there bairns in the cart?’</p> +<p>‘There might have been a bit lassie in the +cart.’</p> +<p>‘I thought as much. What did you give her? I +heard you in the pantry.’</p> +<p>‘Four shillings was what I got that chair for,’ +replies my mother firmly. If I don’t interfere there +will be a coldness between them for at least a minute. +‘There is blood on your finger,’ I say to my +mother.</p> +<p>‘So there is,’ she says, concealing her hand.</p> +<p>‘Blood!’ exclaims my sister anxiously, and then +with a cry of triumph, ‘I warrant it’s jelly. +You gave that lassie one of the jelly cans!’</p> +<p>The Glasgow waiter brings up tea, and presently my sister is +able to rise, and after a sharp fight I am expelled from the +kitchen. The last thing I do as maid of all work is to lug +upstairs the clothes-basket which has just arrived with the +mangling. Now there is delicious linen for my mother to +finger; there was always rapture on her face when the +clothes-basket came in; it never failed to make her once more the +active genius of the house. I may leave her now with her +sheets and collars and napkins and fronts. Indeed, she +probably orders me to go. A son is all very well, but +suppose he were to tread on that counterpane!</p> +<p>My sister is but and I am ben—I mean she is in the east +end and I am in the west—tuts, tuts! let us get at the +English of this by striving: she is in the kitchen and I am at my +desk in the parlour. I hope I may not be disturbed, for +to-night I must make my hero say ‘Darling,’ and it +needs both privacy and concentration. In a word, let me +admit (though I should like to beat about the bush) that I have +sat down to a love-chapter. Too long has it been avoided, +Albert has called Marion ‘dear’ only as yet (between +you and me these are not their real names), but though the public +will probably read the word without blinking, it went off in my +hands with a bang. They tell me—the Sassenach tell +me—that in time I shall be able without a blush to make +Albert say ‘darling,’ and even gather her up in his +arms, but I begin to doubt it; the moment sees me as shy as ever; +I still find it advisable to lock the door, and then—no +witness save the dog—I ‘do’ it dourly with my +teeth clenched, while the dog retreats into the far corner and +moans. The bolder Englishman (I am told) will write a +love-chapter and then go out, quite coolly, to dinner, but such +goings on are contrary to the Scotch nature; even the great +novelists dared not. Conceive Mr. Stevenson left alone with +a hero, a heroine, and a proposal impending (he does not know +where to look). Sir Walter in the same circumstances gets +out of the room by making his love-scenes take place between the +end of one chapter and the beginning of the next, but he could +afford to do anything, and the small fry must e’en to their +task, moan the dog as he may. So I have yoked to mine when, +enter my mother, looking wistful.</p> +<p>‘I suppose you are terrible thrang,’ she says.</p> +<p>‘Well, I am rather busy, but—what is it you want +me to do?’</p> +<p>‘It would be a shame to ask you.’</p> +<p>‘Still, ask me.’</p> +<p>‘I am so terrified they may be filed.’</p> +<p>‘You want me to—?’</p> +<p>‘If you would just come up, and help me to fold the +sheets!’</p> +<p>The sheets are folded and I return to Albert. I lock the +door, and at last I am bringing my hero forward nicely (my knee +in the small of his back), when this startling question is shot +by my sister through the key-hole—</p> +<p>‘Where did you put the carrot-grater?’</p> +<p>It will all have to be done over again if I let Albert go for +a moment, so, gripping him hard, I shout indignantly that I have +not seen the carrot-grater.</p> +<p>‘Then what did you grate the carrots on?’ asks the +voice, and the door-handle is shaken just as I shake Albert.</p> +<p>‘On a broken cup,’ I reply with surprising +readiness, and I get to work again but am less engrossed, for a +conviction grows on me that I put the carrot-grater in the drawer +of the sewing-machine.</p> +<p>I am wondering whether I should confess or brazen it out, when +I hear my sister going hurriedly upstairs. I have a +presentiment that she has gone to talk about me, and I basely +open my door and listen.</p> +<p>‘Just look at that, mother!’</p> +<p>‘Is it a dish-cloth?’</p> +<p>‘That’s what it is now.’</p> +<p>‘Losh behears! it’s one of the new +table-napkins.’</p> +<p>‘That’s what it was. He has been polishing +the kitchen grate with it!’</p> +<p>(I remember!)</p> +<p>‘Woe’s me! That is what comes of his not +letting me budge from this room. O, it is a watery Sabbath +when men take to doing women’s work!’</p> +<p>‘It defies the face of clay, mother, to fathom what +makes him so senseless.’</p> +<p>‘Oh, it’s that weary writing.’</p> +<p>‘And the worst of it is he will talk to-morrow as if he +had done wonders.’</p> +<p>‘That’s the way with the whole clanjam-fray of +them.’</p> +<p>‘Yes, but as usual you will humour him, +mother.’</p> +<p>‘Oh, well, it pleases him, you see,’ says my +mother, ‘and we can have our laugh when his door’s +shut.’</p> +<p>‘He is most terribly handless.’</p> +<p>‘He is all that, but, poor soul, he does his +best.’</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII—R. L. S.</h2> +<p>These familiar initials are, I suppose, the best beloved in +recent literature, certainly they are the sweetest to me, but +there was a time when my mother could not abide them. She +said ‘That Stevenson man’ with a sneer, and, it was +never easy to her to sneer. At thought of him her face +would become almost hard, which seems incredible, and she would +knit her lips and fold her arms, and reply with a stiff +‘oh’ if you mentioned his aggravating name. In +the novels we have a way of writing of our heroine, ‘she +drew herself up haughtily,’ and when mine draw themselves +up haughtily I see my mother thinking of Robert Louis +Stevenson. He knew her opinion of him, and would write, +‘My ears tingled yesterday; I sair doubt she has been +miscalling me again.’ But the more she miscalled him +the more he delighted in her, and she was informed of this, and +at once said, ‘The scoundrel!’ If you would +know what was his unpardonable crime, it was this: he wrote +better books than mine.</p> +<p>I remember the day she found it out, which was not, however, +the day she admitted it. That day, when I should have been +at my work, she came upon me in the kitchen, ‘The Master of +Ballantrae’ beside me, but I was not reading: my head lay +heavy on the table, and to her anxious eyes, I doubt not, I was +the picture of woe. ‘Not writing!’ I echoed, +no, I was not writing, I saw no use in ever trying to write +again. And down, I suppose, went my head once more. +She misunderstood, and thought the blow had fallen; I had +awakened to the discovery, always dreaded by her, that I had +written myself dry; I was no better than an empty +ink-bottle. She wrung her hands, but indignation came to +her with my explanation, which was that while R. L. S. was at it +we others were only ‘prentices cutting our fingers on his +tools. ‘I could never thole his books,’ said my +mother immediately, and indeed vindictively.</p> +<p>‘You have not read any of them,’ I reminded +her.</p> +<p>‘And never will,’ said she with spirit.</p> +<p>And I have no doubt that she called him a dark character that +very day. For weeks too, if not for months, she adhered to +her determination not to read him, though I, having come to my +senses and seen that there is a place for the ‘prentice, +was taking a pleasure, almost malicious, in putting ‘The +Master of Ballantrae’ in her way. I would place it on +her table so that it said good-morning to her when she +rose. She would frown, and carrying it downstairs, as if +she had it in the tongs, replace it on its book-shelf. I +would wrap it up in the cover she had made for the latest +Carlyle: she would skin it contemptuously and again bring it +down. I would hide her spectacles in it, and lay it on top +of the clothes-basket and prop it up invitingly open against her +tea-pot. And at last I got her, though I forget by which of +many contrivances. What I recall vividly is a key-hole +view, to which another member of the family invited me. +Then I saw my mother wrapped up in ‘The Master of +Ballantrae’ and muttering the music to herself, nodding her +head in approval, and taking a stealthy glance at the foot of +each page before she began at the top. Nevertheless she had +an ear for the door, for when I bounced in she had been too +clever for me; there was no book to be seen, only an apron on her +lap and she was gazing out at the window. Some such +conversation as this followed:—</p> +<p>‘You have been sitting very quietly, mother.’</p> +<p>‘I always sit quietly, I never do anything, I’m +just a finished stocking.’</p> +<p>‘Have you been reading?’</p> +<p>‘Do I ever read at this time of day?’</p> +<p>‘What is that in your lap?’</p> +<p>‘Just my apron.’</p> +<p>‘Is that a book beneath the apron?’</p> +<p>‘It might be a book.’</p> +<p>‘Let me see.’</p> +<p>‘Go away with you to your work.’</p> +<p>But I lifted the apron. ‘Why, it’s +“The Master of Ballantrae!”’ I exclaimed, +shocked.</p> +<p>‘So it is!’ said my mother, equally +surprised. But I looked sternly at her, and perhaps she +blushed.</p> +<p>‘Well what do you think: not nearly equal to +mine?’ said I with humour.</p> +<p>‘Nothing like them,’ she said determinedly.</p> +<p>‘Not a bit,’ said I, though whether with a smile +or a groan is immaterial; they would have meant the same +thing. Should I put the book back on its shelf? I +asked, and she replied that I could put it wherever I liked for +all she cared, so long as I took it out of her sight (the +implication was that it had stolen on to her lap while she was +looking out at the window). My behaviour may seem small, +but I gave her a last chance, for I said that some people found +it a book there was no putting down until they reached the last +page.</p> +<p>‘I’m no that kind,’ replied my mother.</p> +<p>Nevertheless our old game with the haver of a thing, as she +called it, was continued, with this difference, that it was now +she who carried the book covertly upstairs, and I who replaced it +on the shelf, and several times we caught each other in the act, +but not a word said either of us; we were grown +self-conscious. Much of the play no doubt I forget, but one +incident I remember clearly. She had come down to sit +beside me while I wrote, and sometimes, when I looked up, her eye +was not on me, but on the shelf where ‘The Master of +Ballantrae’ stood inviting her. Mr. Stevenson’s +books are not for the shelf, they are for the hand; even when you +lay them down, let it be on the table for the next comer. +Being the most sociable that man has penned in our time, they +feel very lonely up there in a stately row. I think their +eye is on you the moment you enter the room, and so you are drawn +to look at them, and you take a volume down with the impulse that +induces one to unchain the dog. And the result is not +dissimilar, for in another moment you two are at play. Is +there any other modern writer who gets round you in this +way? Well, he had given my mother the look which in the +ball-room means, ‘Ask me for this waltz,’ and she +ettled to do it, but felt that her more dutiful course was to sit +out the dance with this other less entertaining partner. I +wrote on doggedly, but could hear the whispering.</p> +<p>‘Am I to be a wall-flower?’ asked James Durie +reproachfully. (It must have been leap-year.)</p> +<p>‘Speak lower,’ replied my mother, with an uneasy +look at me.</p> +<p>‘Pooh!’ said James contemptuously, ‘that +kail-runtle!’</p> +<p>‘I winna have him miscalled,’ said my mother, +frowning.</p> +<p>‘I am done with him,’ said James (wiping his cane +with his cambric handkerchief), and his sword clattered +deliciously (I cannot think this was accidental), which made my +mother sigh. Like the man he was, he followed up his +advantage with a comparison that made me dip viciously.</p> +<p>‘A prettier sound that,’ said he, clanking his +sword again, ‘than the clack-clack of your young +friend’s shuttle.’</p> +<p>‘Whist!’ cried my mother, who had seen me dip.</p> +<p>‘Then give me your arm,’ said James, lowering his +voice.</p> +<p>‘I dare not,’ answered my mother. +‘He’s so touchy about you.’</p> +<p>‘Come, come,’ he pressed her, ‘you are +certain to do it sooner or later, so why not now?’</p> +<p>‘Wait till he has gone for his walk,’ said my +mother; ‘and, forbye that, I’m ower old to dance with +you.’</p> +<p>‘How old are you?’ he inquired.</p> +<p>‘You’re gey an’ pert!’ cried my +mother.</p> +<p>‘Are you seventy?’</p> +<p>‘Off and on,’ she admitted.</p> +<p>‘Pooh,’ he said, ‘a mere girl!’</p> +<p>She replied instantly, ‘I’m no’ to be +catched with chaff’; but she smiled and rose as if he had +stretched out his hand and got her by the finger-tip.</p> +<p>After that they whispered so low (which they could do as they +were now much nearer each other) that I could catch only one +remark. It came from James, and seems to show the tenor of +their whisperings, for his words were, ‘Easily enough, if +you slip me beneath your shawl.’</p> +<p>That is what she did, and furthermore she left the room +guiltily, muttering something about redding up the drawers. +I suppose I smiled wanly to myself, or conscience must have been +nibbling at my mother, for in less than five minutes she was +back, carrying her accomplice openly, and she thrust him with +positive viciousness into the place where my Stevenson had lost a +tooth (as the writer whom he most resembled would have +said). And then like a good mother she took up one of her +son’s books and read it most determinedly. It had +become a touching incident to me, and I remember how we there and +then agreed upon a compromise she was to read the enticing thing +just to convince herself of its inferiority.</p> +<p>‘The Master of Ballantrae’ is not the best. +Conceive the glory, which was my mother’s, of knowing from +a trustworthy source that there are at least three better +awaiting you on the same shelf. She did not know Alan Breck +yet, and he was as anxious to step down as Mr. Bally +himself. John Silver was there, getting into his leg, so +that she should not have to wait a moment, and roaring, +‘I’ll lay to that!’ when she told me +consolingly that she could not thole pirate stories. Not to +know these gentlemen, what is it like? It is like never +having been in love. But they are in the house! That +is like knowing that you will fall in love to-morrow +morning. With one word, by drawing one mournful face, I +could have got my mother to abjure the jam-shelf—nay, I +might have managed it by merely saying that she had enjoyed +‘The Master of Ballantrae.’ For you must +remember that she only read it to persuade herself (and me) of +its unworthiness, and that the reason she wanted to read the +others was to get further proof. All this she made plain to +me, eyeing me a little anxiously the while, and of course I +accepted the explanation. Alan is the biggest child of them +all, and I doubt not that she thought so, but curiously enough +her views of him are among the things I have forgotten. But +how enamoured she was of ‘Treasure Island,’ and how +faithful she tried to be to me all the time she was reading +it! I had to put my hands over her eyes to let her know +that I had entered the room, and even then she might try to read +between my fingers, coming to herself presently, however, to say +‘It’s a haver of a book.’</p> +<p>‘Those pirate stories are so uninteresting,’ I +would reply without fear, for she was too engrossed to see +through me. ‘Do you think you will finish this +one?’</p> +<p>‘I may as well go on with it since I have begun +it,’ my mother says, so slyly that my sister and I shake +our heads at each other to imply, ‘Was there ever such a +woman!’</p> +<p>‘There are none of those one-legged scoundrels in my +books,’ I say.</p> +<p>‘Better without them,’ she replies promptly.</p> +<p>‘I wonder, mother, what it is about the man that so +infatuates the public?’</p> +<p>‘He takes no hold of me,’ she insists. +‘I would a hantle rather read your books.’</p> +<p>I offer obligingly to bring one of them to her, and now she +looks at me suspiciously. ‘You surely believe I like +yours best,’ she says with instant anxiety, and I soothe +her by assurances, and retire advising her to read on, just to +see if she can find out how he misleads the public. +‘Oh, I may take a look at it again by-and-by,’ she +says indifferently, but nevertheless the probability is that as +the door shuts the book opens, as if by some mechanical +contrivance. I remember how she read ‘Treasure +Island,’ holding it close to the ribs of the fire (because +she could not spare a moment to rise and light the gas), and how, +when bed-time came, and we coaxed, remonstrated, scolded, she +said quite fiercely, clinging to the book, ‘I dinna lay my +head on a pillow this night till I see how that laddie got out of +the barrel.’</p> +<p>After this, I think, he was as bewitching as the laddie in the +barrel to her—Was he not always a laddie in the barrel +himself, climbing in for apples while we all stood around, like +gamins, waiting for a bite? He was the spirit of boyhood +tugging at the skirts of this old world of ours and compelling it +to come back and play. And I suppose my mother felt this, +as so many have felt it: like others she was a little scared at +first to find herself skipping again, with this masterful child +at the rope, but soon she gave him her hand and set off with him +for the meadow, not an apology between the two of them for the +author left behind. But near to the end did she admit (in +words) that he had a way with him which was beyond her son. +‘Silk and sacking, that is what we are,’ she was +informed, to which she would reply obstinately, ‘Well, +then, I prefer sacking.’</p> +<p>‘But if he had been your son?’</p> +<p>‘But he is not.’</p> +<p>‘You wish he were?’</p> +<p>‘I dinna deny but what I could have found room for +him.’</p> +<p>And still at times she would smear him with the name of black +(to his delight when he learned the reason). That was when +some podgy red-sealed blue-crossed letter arrived from Vailima, +inviting me to journey thither. (His directions were, +‘You take the boat at San Francisco, and then my place is +the second to the left.’) Even London seemed to her +to carry me so far away that I often took a week to the journey +(the first six days in getting her used to the idea), and these +letters terrified her. It was not the finger of Jim Hawkins +she now saw beckoning me across the seas, it was John Silver, +waving a crutch. Seldom, I believe, did I read straight +through one of these Vailima letters; when in the middle I +suddenly remembered who was upstairs and what she was probably +doing, and I ran to her, three steps at a jump, to find her, lips +pursed, hands folded, a picture of gloom.</p> +<p>‘I have a letter from—’</p> +<p>‘So I have heard.’</p> +<p>‘Would you like to hear it?’</p> +<p>‘No.’</p> +<p>‘Can you not abide him?’</p> +<p>‘I cauna thole him.’</p> +<p>‘Is he a black?’</p> +<p>‘He is all that.’</p> +<p>Well, Vailima was the one spot on earth I had any great +craving to visit, but I think she always knew I would never leave +her. Sometime, she said, she should like me to go, but not +until she was laid away. ‘And how small I have grown +this last winter. Look at my wrists. It canna be long +now.’ No, I never thought of going, was never absent +for a day from her without reluctance, and never walked so +quickly as when I was going back. In the meantime that +happened which put an end for ever to my scheme of travel. +I shall never go up the Road of Loving Hearts now, on ‘a +wonderful clear night of stars,’ to meet the man coming +toward me on a horse. It is still a wonderful clear night +of stars, but the road is empty. So I never saw the dear +king of us all. But before he had written books he was in +my part of the country with a fishing-wand in his hand, and I +like to think that I was the boy who met him that day by Queen +Margaret’s burn, where the rowans are, and busked a fly for +him, and stood watching, while his lithe figure rose and fell as +he cast and hinted back from the crystal waters of +Noran-side.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII—A PANIC IN THE HOUSE</h2> +<p>I was sitting at my desk in London when a telegram came +announcing that my mother was again dangerously ill, and I seized +my hat and hurried to the station. It is not a memory of +one night only. A score of times, I am sure, I was called +north thus suddenly, and reached our little town trembling, head +out at railway-carriage window for a glance at a known face which +would answer the question on mine. These illnesses came as +regularly as the backend of the year, but were less regular in +going, and through them all, by night and by day, I see my sister +moving so unwearyingly, so lovingly, though with failing +strength, that I bow my head in reverence for her. She was +wearing herself done. The doctor advised us to engage a +nurse, but the mere word frightened my mother, and we got between +her and the door as if the woman was already on the stair. +To have a strange woman in my mother’s room—you who +are used to them cannot conceive what it meant to us.</p> +<p>Then we must have a servant. This seemed only less +horrible. My father turned up his sleeves and clutched the +besom. I tossed aside my papers, and was ready to run the +errands. He answered the door, I kept the fires going, he +gave me a lesson in cooking, I showed him how to make beds, one +of us wore an apron. It was not for long. I was led +to my desk, the newspaper was put into my father’s +hand. ‘But a servant!’ we cried, and would have +fallen to again. ‘No servant, comes into this +house,’ said my sister quite fiercely, and, oh, but my +mother was relieved to hear her! There were many such +scenes, a year of them, I daresay, before we yielded.</p> +<p>I cannot say which of us felt it most. In London I was +used to servants, and in moments of irritation would ring for +them furiously, though doubtless my manner changed as they opened +the door. I have even held my own with gentlemen in plush, +giving one my hat, another my stick, and a third my coat, and all +done with little more trouble than I should have expended in +putting the three articles on the chair myself. But this +bold deed, and other big things of the kind, I did that I might +tell my mother of them afterwards, while I sat on the end of her +bed, and her face beamed with astonishment and mirth.</p> +<p>From my earliest days I had seen servants. The manse had +a servant, the bank had another; one of their uses was to pounce +upon, and carry away in stately manner, certain naughty boys who +played with me. The banker did not seem really great to me, +but his servant—oh yes. Her boots cheeped all the way +down the church aisle; it was common report that she had flesh +every day for her dinner; instead of meeting her lover at the +pump she walked him into the country, and he returned with wild +roses in his buttonhole, his hand up to hide them, and on his +face the troubled look of those who know that if they take this +lady they must give up drinking from the saucer for +evermore. For the lovers were really common men, until she +gave them that glance over the shoulder which, I have noticed, is +the fatal gift of servants.</p> +<p>According to legend we once had a servant—in my +childhood I could show the mark of it on my forehead, and even +point her out to other boys, though she was now merely a wife +with a house of her own. But even while I boasted I +doubted. Reduced to life-size she may have been but a woman +who came in to help. I shall say no more about her, lest +some one comes forward to prove that she went home at night.</p> +<p>Never shall I forget my first servant. I was eight or +nine, in velveteen, diamond socks (‘Cross your legs when +they look at you,’ my mother had said, ‘and put your +thumb in your pocket and leave the top of your handkerchief +showing’), and I had travelled by rail to visit a +relative. He had a servant, and as I was to be his guest +she must be my servant also for the time being—you may be +sure I had got my mother to put this plainly before me ere I set +off. My relative met me at the station, but I wasted no +time in hoping I found him well. I did not even cross my +legs for him, so eager was I to hear whether she was still +there. A sister greeted me at the door, but I chafed at +having to be kissed; at once I made for the kitchen, where, I +knew, they reside, and there she was, and I crossed my legs and +put one thumb in my pocket, and the handkerchief was +showing. Afterwards I stopped strangers on the highway with +an offer to show her to them through the kitchen window, and I +doubt not the first letter I ever wrote told my mother what they +are like when they are so near that you can put your fingers into +them.</p> +<p>But now when we could have servants for ourselves I shrank +from the thought. It would not be the same house; we should +have to dissemble; I saw myself speaking English the long day +through. You only know the shell of a Scot until you have +entered his home circle; in his office, in clubs, at social +gatherings where you and he seem to be getting on so well he is +really a house with all the shutters closed and the door +locked. He is not opaque of set purpose, often it is +against his will—it is certainly against mine, I try to +keep my shutters open and my foot in the door but they will bang +to. In many ways my mother was as reticent as myself, +though her manners were as gracious as mine were rough (in vain, +alas! all the honest oiling of them), and my sister was the most +reserved of us all; you might at times see a light through one of +my chinks: she was double-shuttered. Now, it seems to be a +law of nature that we must show our true selves at some time, and +as the Scot must do it at home, and squeeze a day into an hour, +what follows is that there he is self-revealing in the +superlative degree, the feelings so long dammed up overflow, and +thus a Scotch family are probably better acquainted with each +other, and more ignorant of the life outside their circle, than +any other family in the world. And as knowledge is +sympathy, the affection existing between them is almost painful +in its intensity; they have not more to give than their +neighbours, but it is bestowed upon a few instead of being +distributed among many; they are reputed niggardly, but for +family affection at least they pay in gold. In this, I +believe, we shall find the true explanation why Scotch +literature, since long before the days of Burns, has been so +often inspired by the domestic hearth, and has treated it with a +passionate understanding.</p> +<p>Must a woman come into our house and discover that I was not +such a dreary dog as I had the reputation of being? Was I +to be seen at last with the veil of dourness lifted? My +company voice is so low and unimpressive that my first remark is +merely an intimation that I am about to speak (like the whir of +the clock before it strikes): must it be revealed that I had +another voice, that there was one door I never opened without +leaving my reserve on the mat? Ah, that room, must its +secrets be disclosed? So joyous they were when my mother +was well, no wonder we were merry. Again and again she had +been given back to us; it was for the glorious to-day we thanked +God; in our hearts we knew and in our prayers confessed that the +fill of delight had been given us, whatever might befall. +We had not to wait till all was over to know its value; my mother +used to say, ‘We never understand how little we need in +this world until we know the loss of it,’ and there can be +few truer sayings, but during her last years we exulted daily in +the possession of her as much as we can exult in her +memory. No wonder, I say, that we were merry, but we liked +to show it to God alone, and to Him only our agony during those +many night-alarms, when lights flickered in the house and white +faces were round my mother’s bedside. Not for other +eyes those long vigils when, night about, we sat watching, nor +the awful nights when we stood together, teeth +clenched—waiting—it must be now. And it was not +then; her hand became cooler, her breathing more easy; she smiled +to us. Once more I could work by snatches, and was glad, +but what was the result to me compared to the joy of hearing that +voice from the other room? There lay all the work I was +ever proud of, the rest is but honest craftsmanship done to give +her coal and food and softer pillows. My thousand letters +that she so carefully preserved, always sleeping with the last +beneath the sheet, where one was found when she died—they +are the only writing of mine of which I shall ever boast. I +would not there had been one less though I could have written an +immortal book for it.</p> +<p>How my sister toiled—to prevent a stranger’s +getting any footing in the house! And how, with the same +object, my mother strove to ‘do for herself’ once +more. She pretended that she was always well now, and +concealed her ailments so craftily that we had to probe for +them:—</p> +<p>‘I think you are not feeling well to-day?’</p> +<p>‘I am perfectly well.’</p> +<p>‘Where is the pain?’</p> +<p>‘I have no pain to speak of.’</p> +<p>‘Is it at your heart?’</p> +<p>‘No.’</p> +<p>‘Is your breathing hurting you?’</p> +<p>‘Not it.’</p> +<p>‘Do you feel those stounds in your head +again?’</p> +<p>‘No, no, I tell you there is nothing the matter with +me.’</p> +<p>‘Have you a pain in your side?’</p> +<p>‘Really, it’s most provoking I canna put my hand +to my side without your thinking I have a pain there.’</p> +<p>‘You have a pain in your side!’</p> +<p>‘I might have a pain in my side.’</p> +<p>‘And you were trying to hide it! Is it very +painful?’</p> +<p>‘It’s—it’s no so bad but what I can +bear it.’</p> +<p>Which of these two gave in first I cannot tell, though to me +fell the duty of persuading them, for whichever she was she +rebelled as soon as the other showed signs of yielding, so that +sometimes I had two converts in the week but never both on the +same day. I would take them separately, and press the one +to yield for the sake of the other, but they saw so easily +through my artifice. My mother might go bravely to my +sister and say, ‘I have been thinking it over, and I +believe I would like a servant fine—once we got used to +her.’</p> +<p>‘Did he tell you to say that?’ asks my sister +sharply.</p> +<p>‘I say it of my own free will.’</p> +<p>‘He put you up to it, I am sure, and he told you not to +let on that you did it to lighten my work.’</p> +<p>‘Maybe he did, but I think we should get one.’</p> +<p>‘Not for my sake,’ says my sister obstinately, and +then my mother comes ben to me to say delightedly, ‘She +winna listen to reason!’</p> +<p>But at last a servant was engaged; we might be said to be at +the window, gloomily waiting for her now, and it was with such +words as these that we sought to comfort each other and +ourselves:—</p> +<p>‘She will go early to her bed.’</p> +<p>‘She needna often be seen upstairs.’</p> +<p>‘We’ll set her to the walking every +day.’</p> +<p>‘There will be a many errands for her to run. +We’ll tell her to take her time over them.’</p> +<p>‘Three times she shall go to the kirk every Sabbath, and +we’ll egg her on to attending the lectures in the +hall.’</p> +<p>‘She is sure to have friends in the town. +We’ll let her visit them often.’</p> +<p>‘If she dares to come into your room, mother!’</p> +<p>‘Mind this, every one of you, servant or no servant, I +fold all the linen mysel.’</p> +<p>‘She shall not get cleaning out the east +room.’</p> +<p>‘Nor putting my chest of drawers in order.’</p> +<p>‘Nor tidying up my manuscripts.’</p> +<p>‘I hope she’s a reader, though. You could +set her down with a book, and then close the door canny on +her.’</p> +<p>And so on. Was ever servant awaited so +apprehensively? And then she came—at an anxious time, +too, when her worth could be put to the proof at once—and +from first to last she was a treasure. I know not what we +should have done without her.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IX—MY HEROINE.</h2> +<p>When it was known that I had begun another story my mother +might ask what it was to be about this time.</p> +<p>‘Fine we can guess who it is about,’ my sister +would say pointedly.</p> +<p>‘Maybe you can guess, but it is beyond me,’ says +my mother, with the meekness of one who knows that she is a dull +person.</p> +<p>My sister scorned her at such times. ‘What woman +is in all his books?’ she would demand.</p> +<p>‘I’m sure I canna say,’ replies my mother +determinedly. ‘I thought the women were different +every time.’</p> +<p>‘Mother, I wonder you can be so audacious! Fine +you know what woman I mean.’</p> +<p>‘How can I know? What woman is it? You +should bear in mind that I hinna your cleverness’ (they +were constantly giving each other little knocks).</p> +<p>‘I won’t give you the satisfaction of saying her +name. But this I will say, it is high time he was keeping +her out of his books.’</p> +<p>And then as usual my mother would give herself away +unconsciously. ‘That is what I tell him,’ she +says chuckling, ‘and he tries to keep me out, but he canna; +it’s more than he can do!’</p> +<p>On an evening after my mother had gone to bed, the first +chapter would be brought upstairs, and I read, sitting at the +foot of the bed, while my sister watched to make my mother behave +herself, and my father cried H’sh! when there were +interruptions. All would go well at the start, the +reflections were accepted with a little nod of the head, the +descriptions of scenery as ruts on the road that must be got over +at a walking pace (my mother did not care for scenery, and that +is why there is so little of it in my books). But now I am +reading too quickly, a little apprehensively, because I know that +the next paragraph begins with—let us say with, +‘Along this path came a woman’: I had intended to +rush on here in a loud bullying voice, but ‘Along this path +came a woman’ I read, and stop. Did I hear a faint +sound from the other end of the bed? Perhaps I did not; I +may only have been listening for it, but I falter and look +up. My sister and I look sternly at my mother. She +bites her under-lip and clutches the bed with both hands, really +she is doing her best for me, but first comes a smothered +gurgling sound, then her hold on herself relaxes and she shakes +with mirth.</p> +<p>‘That’s a way to behave!’ cries my +sister.</p> +<p>‘I cannot help it,’ my mother gasps.</p> +<p>‘And there’s nothing to laugh at.’</p> +<p>‘It’s that woman,’ my mother explains +unnecessarily.</p> +<p>‘Maybe she’s not the woman you think her,’ I +say, crushed.</p> +<p>‘Maybe not,’ says my mother doubtfully. +‘What was her name?’</p> +<p>‘Her name,’ I answer with triumph, ‘was not +Margaret’; but this makes her ripple again. ‘I +have so many names nowadays,’ she mutters.</p> +<p>‘H’sh!’ says my father, and the reading is +resumed.</p> +<p>Perhaps the woman who came along the path was of tall and +majestic figure, which should have shown my mother that I had +contrived to start my train without her this time. But it +did not.</p> +<p>‘What are you laughing at now?’ says my sister +severely. ‘Do you not hear that she was a tall, +majestic woman?’</p> +<p>‘It’s the first time I ever heard it said of +her,’ replies my mother.</p> +<p>‘But she is.’</p> +<p>‘Ke fy, havers!’</p> +<p>‘The book says it.’</p> +<p>‘There will be a many queer things in the book. +What was she wearing?’</p> +<p>I have not described her clothes. ‘That’s a +mistake,’ says my mother. ‘When I come upon a +woman in a book, the first thing I want to know about her is +whether she was good-looking, and the second, how she was put +on.’</p> +<p>The woman on the path was eighteen years of age, and of +remarkable beauty.</p> +<p>‘That settles you,’ says my sister.</p> +<p>‘I was no beauty at eighteen,’ my mother admits, +but here my father interferes unexpectedly. ‘There +wasna your like in this countryside at eighteen,’ says he +stoutly.</p> +<p>‘Pooh!’ says she, well pleased.</p> +<p>‘Were you plain, then?’ we ask.</p> +<p>‘Sal,’ she replies briskly, ‘I was far from +plain.’</p> +<p>‘H’sh!’</p> +<p>Perhaps in the next chapter this lady (or another) appears in +a carriage.</p> +<p>‘I assure you we’re mounting in the world,’ +I hear my mother murmur, but I hurry on without looking up. +The lady lives in a house where there are footmen—but the +footmen have come on the scene too hurriedly. ‘This +is more than I can stand,’ gasps my mother, and just as she +is getting the better of a fit of laughter, ‘Footman, give +me a drink of water,’ she cries, and this sets her off +again. Often the readings had to end abruptly because her +mirth brought on violent fits of coughing.</p> +<p>Sometimes I read to my sister alone, and she assured me that +she could not see my mother among the women this time. This +she said to humour me. Presently she would slip upstairs to +announce triumphantly, ‘You are in again!’</p> +<p>Or in the small hours I might make a confidant of my father, +and when I had finished reading he would say thoughtfully, +‘That lassie is very natural. Some of the ways you +say she had—your mother had them just the same. Did +you ever notice what an extraordinary woman your mother +is?’</p> +<p>Then would I seek my mother for comfort. She was the +more ready to give it because of her profound conviction that if +I was found out—that is, if readers discovered how +frequently and in how many guises she appeared in my +books—the affair would become a public scandal.</p> +<p>‘You see Jess is not really you,’ I begin +inquiringly.</p> +<p>‘Oh no, she is another kind of woman altogether,’ +my mother says, and then spoils the compliment by adding +naîvely, ‘She had but two rooms and I have +six.’</p> +<p>I sigh. ‘Without counting the pantry, and +it’s a great big pantry,’ she mutters.</p> +<p>This was not the sort of difference I could greatly plume +myself upon, and honesty would force me to say, ‘As far as +that goes, there was a time when you had but two rooms +yourself—’</p> +<p>‘That’s long since,’ she breaks in. +‘I began with an up-the-stair, but I always had it in my +mind—I never mentioned it, but there it was—to have +the down-the-stair as well. Ay, and I’ve had it this +many a year.’</p> +<p>‘Still, there is no denying that Jess had the same +ambition.’</p> +<p>‘She had, but to her two-roomed house she had to stick +all her born days. Was that like me?’</p> +<p>‘No, but she wanted—’</p> +<p>‘She wanted, and I wanted, but I got and she +didna. That’s the difference betwixt her and +me.’</p> +<p>‘If that is all the difference, it is little credit I +can claim for having created her.’</p> +<p>My mother sees that I need soothing. ‘That is far +from being all the difference,’ she would say +eagerly. ‘There’s my silk, for instance. +Though I say it mysel, there’s not a better silk in the +valley of Strathmore. Had Jess a silk of any kind—not +to speak of a silk like that?’</p> +<p>‘Well, she had no silk, but you remember how she got +that cloak with beads.’</p> +<p>‘An eleven and a bit! Hoots, what was that to +boast of! I tell you, every single yard of my silk +cost—’</p> +<p>‘Mother, that is the very way Jess spoke about her +cloak!’</p> +<p>She lets this pass, perhaps without hearing it, for solicitude +about her silk has hurried her to the wardrobe where it +hangs.</p> +<p>‘Ah, mother, I am afraid that was very like +Jess!’</p> +<p>‘How could it be like her when she didna even have a +wardrobe? I tell you what, if there had been a real Jess +and she had boasted to me about her cloak with beads, I would +have said to her in a careless sort of voice, “Step across +with me, Jess and I’ll let you see something that is +hanging in my wardrobe.” That would have lowered her +pride!’</p> +<p>‘I don’t believe that is what you would have done, +mother.’</p> +<p>Then a sweeter expression would come into her face. +‘No,’ she would say reflectively, ‘it’s +not.’</p> +<p>‘What would you have done? I think I +know.’</p> +<p>‘You canna know. But I’m thinking I would +have called to mind that she was a poor woman, and ailing, and +terrible windy about her cloak, and I would just have said it was +a beauty and that I wished I had one like it.’</p> +<p>‘Yes, I am certain that is what you would have +done. But oh, mother, that is just how Jess would have +acted if some poorer woman than she had shown her a new +shawl.’</p> +<p>‘Maybe, but though I hadna boasted about my silk I would +have wanted to do it.’</p> +<p>‘Just as Jess would have been fidgeting to show off her +eleven and a bit!’</p> +<p>It seems advisable to jump to another book; not to my first, +because—well, as it was my first there would naturally be +something of my mother in it, and not to the second, as it was my +first novel and not much esteemed even in our family. (But +the little touches of my mother in it are not so bad.) Let +us try the story about the minister.</p> +<p>My mother’s first remark is decidedly damping. +‘Many a time in my young days,’ she says, ‘I +played about the Auld Licht manse, but I little thought I should +live to be the mistress of it!’</p> +<p>‘But Margaret is not you.’</p> +<p>‘N-no, oh no. She had a very different life from +mine. I never let on to a soul that she is me!’</p> +<p>‘She was not meant to be you when I began. Mother, +what a way you have of coming creeping in!’</p> +<p>‘You should keep better watch on yourself.’</p> +<p>‘Perhaps if I had called Margaret by some other +name—’</p> +<p>‘I should have seen through her just the same. As +soon as I heard she was the mother I began to laugh. In +some ways, though, she’s no’ so very like me. +She was long in finding out about Babbie. I’se uphaud +I should have been quicker.’</p> +<p>‘Babbie, you see, kept close to the +garden-wall.’</p> +<p>‘It’s not the wall up at the manse that would have +hidden her from me.’</p> +<p>‘She came out in the dark.’</p> +<p>‘I’m thinking she would have found me looking for +her with a candle.’</p> +<p>‘And Gavin was secretive.’</p> +<p>‘That would have put me on my mettle.’</p> +<p>‘She never suspected anything.’</p> +<p>‘I wonder at her.’</p> +<p>But my new heroine is to be a child. What has madam to +say to that?</p> +<p>A child! Yes, she has something to say even to +that. ‘This beats all!’ are the words.</p> +<p>‘Come, come, mother, I see what you are thinking, but I +assure you that this time—’</p> +<p>‘Of course not,’ she says soothingly, ‘oh +no, she canna be me’; but anon her real thoughts are +revealed by the artless remark, ‘I doubt, though, this is a +tough job you have on hand—it is so long since I was a +bairn.’</p> +<p>We came very close to each other in those talks. +‘It is a queer thing,’ she would say softly, +‘that near everything you write is about this bit +place. You little expected that when you began. I +mind well the time when it never entered your head, any more than +mine, that you could write a page about our squares and +wynds. I wonder how it has come about?’</p> +<p>There was a time when I could not have answered that question, +but that time had long passed. ‘I suppose, mother, it +was because you were most at home in your own town, and there was +never much pleasure to me in writing of people who could not have +known you, nor of squares and wynds you never passed through, nor +of a country-side where you never carried your father’s +dinner in a flagon. There is scarce a house in all my books +where I have not seemed to see you a thousand times, bending over +the fireplace or winding up the clock.’</p> +<p>‘And yet you used to be in such a quandary because you +knew nobody you could make your women-folk out of! Do you +mind that, and how we both laughed at the notion of your having +to make them out of me?’</p> +<p>‘I remember.’</p> +<p>‘And now you’ve gone back to my father’s +time. It’s more than sixty years since I carried his +dinner in a flagon through the long parks of Kinnordy.’</p> +<p>‘I often go into the long parks, mother, and sit on the +stile at the edge of the wood till I fancy I see a little girl +coming toward me with a flagon in her hand.’</p> +<p>‘Jumping the burn (I was once so proud of my jumps!) and +swinging the flagon round so quick that what was inside hadna +time to fall out. I used to wear a magenta frock and a +white pinafore. Did I ever tell you that?’</p> +<p>‘Mother, the little girl in my story wears a magenta +frock and a white pinafore.’</p> +<p>‘You minded that! But I’m thinking it wasna +a lassie in a pinafore you saw in the long parks of Kinnordy, it +was just a gey done auld woman.’</p> +<p>‘It was a lassie in a pinafore, mother, when she was far +away, but when she came near it was a gey done auld +woman.’</p> +<p>‘And a fell ugly one!’</p> +<p>‘The most beautiful one I shall ever see.’</p> +<p>‘I wonder to hear you say it. Look at my wrinkled +auld face.’</p> +<p>‘It is the sweetest face in all the world.’</p> +<p>‘See how the rings drop off my poor wasted +finger.’</p> +<p>‘There will always be someone nigh, mother, to put them +on again.’</p> +<p>‘Ay, will there! Well I know it. Do you mind +how when you were but a bairn you used to say, “Wait till +I’m a man, and you’ll never have a reason for +greeting again?”’</p> +<p>I remembered.</p> +<p>‘You used to come running into the house to say, +“There’s a proud dame going down the Marywellbrae in +a cloak that is black on one side and white on the other; wait +till I’m a man, and you’ll have one the very +same.” And when I lay on gey hard beds you said, +“When I’m a man you’ll lie on +feathers.” You saw nothing bonny, you never heard of +my setting my heart on anything, but what you flung up your head +and cried, “Wait till I’m a man.” You +fair shamed me before the neighbours, and yet I was windy, +too. And now it has all come true like a dream. I can +call to mind not one little thing I ettled for in my lusty days +that hasna been put into my hands in my auld age; I sit here +useless, surrounded by the gratification of all my wishes and all +my ambitions, and at times I’m near terrified, for +it’s as if God had mista’en me for some other +woman.’</p> +<p>‘Your hopes and ambitions were so simple,’ I would +say, but she did not like that. ‘They werena that +simple,’ she would answer, flushing.</p> +<p>I am reluctant to leave those happy days, but the end must be +faced, and as I write I seem to see my mother growing smaller and +her face more wistful, and still she lingers with us, as if God +had said, ‘Child of mine, your time has come, be not +afraid.’ And she was not afraid, but still she +lingered, and He waited, smiling. I never read any of that +last book to her; when it was finished she was too heavy with +years to follow a story. To me this was as if my book must +go out cold into the world (like all that may come after it from +me), and my sister, who took more thought for others and less for +herself than any other human being I have known, saw this, and by +some means unfathomable to a man coaxed my mother into being once +again the woman she had been. On a day but three weeks +before she died my father and I were called softly +upstairs. My mother was sitting bolt upright, as she loved +to sit, in her old chair by the window, with a manuscript in her +hands. But she was looking about her without much +understanding. ‘Just to please him,’ my sister +whispered, and then in a low, trembling voice my mother began to +read. I looked at my sister. Tears of woe were +stealing down her face. Soon the reading became very slow +and stopped. After a pause, ‘There was something you +were to say to him,’ my sister reminded her. +‘Luck,’ muttered a voice as from the dead, +‘luck.’ And then the old smile came running to +her face like a lamp-lighter, and she said to me, ‘I am +ower far gone to read, but I’m thinking I am in it +again!’ My father put her Testament in her hands, and +it fell open—as it always does—at the Fourteenth of +John. She made an effort to read but could not. +Suddenly she stooped and kissed the broad page. ‘Will +that do instead?’ she asked.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER X—ART THOU AFRAID HIS POWER SHALL FAIL?</h2> +<p>For years I had been trying to prepare myself for my +mother’s death, trying to foresee how she would die, seeing +myself when she was dead. Even then I knew it was a vain +thing I did, but I am sure there was no morbidness in it. I +hoped I should be with her at the end, not as the one she looked +at last but as him from whom she would turn only to look upon her +best-beloved, not my arm but my sister’s should be round +her when she died, not my hand but my sister’s should close +her eyes. I knew that I might reach her too late; I saw +myself open a door where there was none to greet me, and go up +the old stair into the old room. But what I did not foresee +was that which happened. I little thought it could come +about that I should climb the old stair, and pass the door beyond +which my mother lay dead, and enter another room first, and go on +my knees there.</p> +<p>My mother’s favourite paraphrase is one known in our +house as David’s because it was the last he learned to +repeat. It was also the last thing she read—</p> +<blockquote><p>Art thou afraid his power shall fail<br /> +When comes thy evil day?<br /> +And can an all-creating arm<br /> +Grow weary or decay?</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I heard her voice gain strength as she read it, I saw her +timid face take courage, but when came my evil day, then at the +dawning, alas for me, I was afraid.</p> +<p>In those last weeks, though we did not know it, my sister was +dying on her feet. For many years she had been giving her +life, a little bit at a time, for another year, another month, +latterly for another day, of her mother, and now she was worn +out. ‘I’ll never leave you, +mother.’—‘Fine I know you’ll never leave +me.’ I thought that cry so pathetic at the time, but +I was not to know its full significance until it was only the +echo of a cry. Looking at these two then it was to me as if +my mother had set out for the new country, and my sister held her +back. But I see with a clearer vision now. It is no +longer the mother but the daughter who is in front, and she +cries, ‘Mother, you are lingering so long at the end, I +have ill waiting for you.’</p> +<p>But she knew no more than we how it was to be; if she seemed +weary when we met her on the stair, she was still the brightest, +the most active figure in my mother’s room; she never +complained, save when she had to depart on that walk which +separated them for half an hour. How reluctantly she put on +her bonnet, how we had to press her to it, and how often, having +gone as far as the door, she came back to stand by my +mother’s side. Sometimes as we watched from the +window, I could not but laugh, and yet with a pain at my heart, +to see her hasting doggedly onward, not an eye for right or left, +nothing in her head but the return. There was always my +father in the house, than whom never was a more devoted husband, +and often there were others, one daughter in particular, but they +scarce dared tend my mother—this one snatched the cup +jealously from their hands. My mother liked it best from +her. We all knew this. ‘I like them fine, but I +canna do without you.’ My sister, so unselfish in all +other things, had an unwearying passion for parading it before +us. It was the rich reward of her life.</p> +<p>The others spoke among themselves of what must come soon, and +they had tears to help them, but this daughter would not speak of +it, and her tears were ever slow to come. I knew that night +and day she was trying to get ready for a world without her +mother in it, but she must remain dumb; none of us was so Scotch +as she, she must bear her agony alone, a tragic solitary +Scotchwoman. Even my mother, who spoke so calmly to us of +the coming time, could not mention it to her. These two, +the one in bed, and the other bending over her, could only look +long at each other, until slowly the tears came to my +sister’s eyes, and then my mother would turn away her wet +face. And still neither said a word, each knew so well what +was in the other’s thoughts, so eloquently they spoke in +silence, ‘Mother, I am loath to let you go,’ and +‘Oh my daughter, now that my time is near, I wish you +werena quite so fond of me.’ But when the daughter +had slipped away my mother would grip my hand and cry, ‘I +leave her to you; you see how she has sown, it will depend on you +how she is to reap.’ And I made promises, but I +suppose neither of us saw that she had already reaped.</p> +<p>In the night my mother might waken and sit up in bed, confused +by what she saw. While she slept, six decades or more had +rolled back and she was again in her girlhood; suddenly recalled +from it she was dizzy, as with the rush of the years. How +had she come into this room? When she went to bed last +night, after preparing her father’s supper, there had been +a dresser at the window: what had become of the salt-bucket, the +meal-tub, the hams that should be hanging from the rafters? +There were no rafters; it was a papered ceiling. She had +often heard of open beds, but how came she to be lying in +one? To fathom these things she would try to spring out of +bed and be startled to find it a labour, as if she had been taken +ill in the night. Hearing her move I might knock on the +wall that separated us, this being a sign, prearranged between +us, that I was near by, and so all was well, but sometimes the +knocking seemed to belong to the past, and she would cry, +‘That is my father chapping at the door, I maun rise and +let him in.’ She seemed to see him—and it was +one much younger than herself that she saw—covered with +snow, kicking clods of it from his boots, his hands swollen and +chapped with sand and wet. Then I would hear—it was a +common experience of the night—my sister soothing her +lovingly, and turning up the light to show her where she was, +helping her to the window to let her see that it was no night of +snow, even humouring her by going downstairs, and opening the +outer door, and calling into the darkness, ‘Is anybody +there?’ and if that was not sufficient, she would swaddle +my mother in wraps and take her through the rooms of the house, +lighting them one by one, pointing out familiar objects, and so +guiding her slowly through the sixty odd years she had jumped too +quickly. And perhaps the end of it was that my mother came +to my bedside and said wistfully, ‘Am I an auld +woman?’</p> +<p>But with daylight, even during the last week in which I saw +her, she would be up and doing, for though pitifully frail she no +longer suffered from any ailment. She seemed so well +comparatively that I, having still the remnants of an illness to +shake off, was to take a holiday in Switzerland, and then return +for her, when we were all to go to the much-loved manse of her +much-loved brother in the west country. So she had many +preparations on her mind, and the morning was the time when she +had any strength to carry them out. To leave her house had +always been a month’s work for her, it must be left in such +perfect order, every corner visited and cleaned out, every chest +probed to the bottom, the linen lifted out, examined and put back +lovingly as if to make it lie more easily in her absence, shelves +had to be re-papered, a strenuous week devoted to the +garret. Less exhaustively, but with much of the old +exultation in her house, this was done for the last time, and +then there was the bringing out of her own clothes, and the +spreading of them upon the bed and the pleased fingering of them, +and the consultations about which should be left behind. +Ah, beautiful dream! I clung to it every morning; I would not +look when my sister shook her head at it, but long before each +day was done I too knew that it could never be. It had come +true many times, but never again. We two knew it, but when +my mother, who must always be prepared so long beforehand, called +for her trunk and band-boxes we brought them to her, and we stood +silent, watching, while she packed.</p> +<p>The morning came when I was to go away. It had come a +hundred times, when I was a boy, when I was an undergraduate, +when I was a man, when she had seemed big and strong to me, when +she was grown so little and it was I who put my arms round +her. But always it was the same scene. I am not to +write about it, of the parting and the turning back on the stair, +and two people trying to smile, and the setting off again, and +the cry that brought me back. Nor shall I say more of the +silent figure in the background, always in the background, always +near my mother. The last I saw of these two was from the +gate. They were at the window which never passes from my +eyes. I could not see my dear sister’s face, for she +was bending over my mother, pointing me out to her, and telling +her to wave her hand and smile, because I liked it so. That +action was an epitome of my sister’s life.</p> +<p>I had been gone a fortnight when the telegram was put into my +hands. I had got a letter from my sister, a few hours +before, saying that all was well at home. The telegram said +in five words that she had died suddenly the previous +night. There was no mention of my mother, and I was three +days’ journey from home.</p> +<p>The news I got on reaching London was this: my mother did not +understand that her daughter was dead, and they were waiting for +me to tell her.</p> +<p>I need not have been such a coward. This is how these +two died—for, after all, I was too late by twelve hours to +see my mother alive.</p> +<p>Their last night was almost gleeful. In the old days +that hour before my mother’s gas was lowered had so often +been the happiest that my pen steals back to it again and again +as I write: it was the time when my mother lay smiling in bed and +we were gathered round her like children at play, our reticence +scattered on the floor or tossed in sport from hand to hand, the +author become so boisterous that in the pauses they were holding +him in check by force. Rather woful had been some attempts +latterly to renew those evenings, when my mother might be brought +to the verge of them, as if some familiar echo called her, but +where she was she did not clearly know, because the past was +roaring in her ears like a great sea. But this night was a +last gift to my sister. The joyousness of their voices drew +the others in the house upstairs, where for more than an hour my +mother was the centre of a merry party and so clear of mental eye +that they, who were at first cautious, abandoned themselves to +the sport, and whatever they said, by way of humorous rally, she +instantly capped as of old, turning their darts against +themselves until in self-defence they were three to one, and the +three hard pressed. How my sister must have been +rejoicing. Once again she could cry, ‘Was there ever +such a woman!’ They tell me that such a happiness was +on the daughter’s face that my mother commented on it, that +having risen to go they sat down again, fascinated by the +radiance of these two. And when eventually they went, the +last words they heard were, ‘They are gone, you see, +mother, but I am here, I will never leave you,’ and +‘Na, you winna leave me; fine I know that.’ For +some time afterwards their voices could be heard from downstairs, +but what they talked of is not known. And then came +silence. Had I been at home I should have been in the room +again several times, turning the handle of the door softly, +releasing it so that it did not creak, and standing looking at +them. It had been so a thousand times. But that +night, would I have slipped out again, mind at rest, or should I +have seen the change coming while they slept?</p> +<p>Let it be told in the fewest words. My sister awoke next +morning with a headache. She had always been a martyr to +headaches, but this one, like many another, seemed to be +unusually severe. Nevertheless she rose and lit my +mother’s fire and brought up her breakfast, and then had to +return to bed. She was not able to write her daily letter +to me, saying how my mother was, and almost the last thing she +did was to ask my father to write it, and not to let on that she +was ill, as it would distress me. The doctor was called, +but she rapidly became unconscious. In this state she was +removed from my mother’s bed to another. It was +discovered that she was suffering from an internal disease. +No one had guessed it. She herself never knew. +Nothing could be done. In this unconsciousness she passed +away, without knowing that she was leaving her mother. Had +I known, when I heard of her death, that she had been saved that +pain, surely I could have gone home more bravely with the +words,</p> +<blockquote><p>Art thou afraid His power fail<br /> +When comes thy evil day?</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Ah, you would think so, I should have thought so, but I know +myself now. When I reached London I did hear how my sister +died, but still I was afraid. I saw myself in my +mother’s room telling her why the door of the next room was +locked, and I was afraid. God had done so much, and yet I +could not look confidently to Him for the little that was left to +do. ‘O ye of little faith!’ These are the +words I seem to hear my mother saying to me now, and she looks at +me so sorrowfully.</p> +<p>He did it very easily, and it has ceased to seem marvellous to +me because it was so plainly His doing. My timid mother saw +the one who was never to leave her carried unconscious from the +room, and she did not break down. She who used to wring her +hands if her daughter was gone for a moment never asked for her +again, they were afraid to mention her name; an awe fell upon +them. But I am sure they need not have been so +anxious. There are mysteries in life and death, but this +was not one of them. A child can understand what +happened. God said that my sister must come first, but He +put His hand on my mother’s eyes at that moment and she was +altered.</p> +<p>They told her that I was on my way home, and she said with a +confident smile, ‘He will come as quick as trains can bring +him.’ That is my reward, that is what I have got for +my books. Everything I could do for her in this life I have +done since I was a boy; I look back through the years and I +cannot see the smallest thing left undone.</p> +<p>They were buried together on my mother’s seventy-sixth +birthday, though there had been three days between their +deaths. On the last day, my mother insisted on rising from +bed and going through the house. The arms that had so often +helped her on that journey were now cold in death, but there were +others only less loving, and she went slowly from room to room +like one bidding good-bye, and in mine she said, ‘The +beautiful rows upon rows of books, ant he said every one of them +was mine, all mine!’ and in the east room, which was her +greatest triumph, she said caressingly, ‘My nain bonny +room!’ All this time there seemed to be something +that she wanted, but the one was dead who always knew what she +wanted, and they produced many things at which she shook her +head. They did not know then that she was dying, but they +followed her through the house in some apprehension, and after +she returned to bed they saw that she was becoming very +weak. Once she said eagerly, ‘Is that you, +David?’ and again she thought she heard her father knocking +the snow off his boots. Her desire for that which she could +not name came back to her, and at last they saw that what she +wanted was the old christening robe. It was brought to her, +and she unfolded it with trembling, exultant hands, and when she +had made sure that it was still of virgin fairness her old arms +went round it adoringly, and upon her face there was the +ineffable mysterious glow of motherhood. Suddenly she said, +‘Wha’s bairn’s dead? is a bairn of mine +dead?’ but those watching dared not speak, and then slowly +as if with an effort of memory she repeated our names aloud in +the order in which we were born. Only one, who should have +come third among the ten, did she omit, the one in the next room, +but at the end, after a pause, she said her name and repeated it +again and again and again, lingering over it as if it were the +most exquisite music and this her dying song. And yet it +was a very commonplace name.</p> +<p>They knew now that she was dying. She told them to fold +up the christening robe and almost sharply she watched them put +it away, and then for some time she talked of the long lovely +life that had been hers, and of Him to whom she owed it. +She said good-bye to them all, and at last turned her face to the +side where her best-beloved had lain, and for over an hour she +prayed. They only caught the words now and again, and the +last they heard were ‘God’ and +‘love.’ I think God was smiling when He took +her to Him, as He had so often smiled at her during those +seventy-six years.</p> +<p>I saw her lying dead, and her face was beautiful and +serene. But it was the other room I entered first, and it +was by my sister’s side that I fell upon my knees. +The rounded completeness of a woman’s life that was my +mother’s had not been for her. She would not have it +at the price. ‘I’ll never leave you, +mother.’—‘Fine I know you’ll never leave +me.’ The fierce joy of loving too much, it is a +terrible thing. My sister’s mouth was firmly closed, +as if she had got her way.</p> +<p>And now I am left without them, but I trust my memory will +ever go back to those happy days, not to rush through them, but +dallying here and there, even as my mother wanders through my +books. And if I also live to a time when age must dim my +mind and the past comes sweeping back like the shades of night +over the bare road of the present it will not, I believe, be my +youth I shall see but hers, not a boy clinging to his +mother’s skirt and crying, ‘Wait till I’m a +man, and you’ll lie on feathers,’ but a little girl +in a magenta frock and a white pinafore, who comes toward me +through the long parks, singing to herself, and carrying her +father’s dinner in a flagon.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">THE END</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">Edinburgh: T. and A. 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