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@@ -0,0 +1,3458 @@ +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*** + + +Transcribed from the 1897 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + [Picture: Picture of Margaret Ogilvy] + + + + + + MARGARET OGILVY + + + BY HER SON + + J. M. BARRIE + + [Picture: Graphic] + + _Second Edition_ + _Completing Twentieth Thousand_ + + * * * * * + + LONDON + HODDER AND STOUGHTON + 27 PATERNOSTER ROW + 1897 + + TO + THE MEMORY OF + MY SISTER + JANE ANN + + + + +CHAPTER I--HOW MY MOTHER GOT HER SOFT FACE + + +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. + +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. + + * * * * * + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER II--WHAT SHE HAD BEEN + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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, + + 'In a dream of the night I was wafted away,' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +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:-- + + '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.' + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER III--WHAT I SHOULD BE + + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +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, + + What can I do to be for ever known, + And make the age to come my own? + +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. + +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, + + What can I do to be for ever known, + And make the age to come my own? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'If you could only be sure of as much as would keep body and soul +together,' my mother would say with a sigh. + +'With something over, mother, to send to you.' + +'You couldna expect that at the start.' + +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.' + +'Then I must make you my heroine,' I said lightly. + +'A gey auld-farrant-like heroine!' she said, and we both laughed at the +notion--so little did we read the future. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--AN EDITOR + + +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. + +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. + +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-- + +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. + +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? + +'But he knows my age, mother.' + +'I'm glad of that, but maybe he wouldna like you when he saw you.' + +'Oh, it is my manner, then!' + +'I dinna say that, but--' + +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. + +'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?' + +'Sal, I'm thinking I could manage him,' says my mother, with a chuckle. + +'How would you set about it?' + +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.' + +'Yes, that is just what you would do, you cunning woman! But if he has +no family?' + +'I would say what great men editors are!' + +'He would see through you.' + +'Not he!' + +'You don't understand that what imposes on common folk would never +hoodwink an editor.' + +'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.' + +'Ah, I'm sure there are better ways of getting round an editor than +that.' + +'I daresay there are,' my mother would say with conviction, 'but if you +try that plan you will never need to try another.' + +'How artful you are, mother--you with your soft face! Do you not think +shame?' + +'Pooh!' says my mother brazenly. + +'I can see the reason why you are so popular with men.' + +'Ay, you can see it, but they never will.' + +'Well, how would you dress yourself if you were going to that editor's +office?' + +'Of course I would wear my silk and my Sabbath bonnet.' + +'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."' + +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.' + +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.' + +'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. + +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.' + +My wisest policy was to remain downstairs when these withering blasts +were blowing, but probably I went up in self-defence. + +'I never saw you so pugnacious before, mother.' + +'Oh,' she would reply promptly, 'you canna expect me to be sharp in the +uptake when I am no' a member of a club.' + +'But the difficulty is in becoming a member. They are very particular +about whom they elect, and I daresay I shall not get in.' + +'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.' + +'If I get in it will be because the editor is supporting me.' + +'It's the first ill thing I ever heard of him.' + +'You don't think he is to get any of the thirty pounds, do you?' + +''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.' + +'What bare-faced scoundrels?' + +'Them that have the club.' + +'But all the members have the club between them.' + +'Havers! I'm no' to be catched with chaff.' + +'But don't you believe me?' + +'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?' + +'To keep it going.' + +'They dinna have to pay for their dinners, then?' + +'Oh yes, they have to pay extra for dinner.' + +'And a gey black price, I'm thinking.' + +'Well, five or six shillings.' + +'Is that all? Losh, it's nothing, I wonder they dinna raise the price.' + +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?' + +No, it was not that kind of club. + +'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?' + +Not a penny. + +'Anything at New Year's time?' + +Not so much as a goose. + +'Is there any one mortal thing you get free out of that club?' + +There was not one mortal thing. + +'And thirty pounds is what you pay for this?' + +If the committee elected me. + +'How many are in the committee?' + +About a dozen, I thought. + +'A dozen! Ay, ay, that makes two pound ten apiece.' + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER V--A DAY OF HER LIFE + + +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. + +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?' + +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. + +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? + +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 paean 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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'I'll need to be rising now,' she says, with a yawn that may be genuine. + +'How long have you been in bed?' + +'You saw me go.' + +'And then I saw you at the window. Did you go straight back to bed?' + +'Surely I had that much sense.' + +'The truth!' + +'I might have taken a look at the clock first.' + +'It is a terrible thing to have a mother who prevaricates. Have you been +lying down ever since I left?' + +'Thereabout.' + +'What does that mean exactly?' + +'Off and on.' + +'Have you been to the garret?' + +'What should I do in the garret?' + +'But have you?' + +'I might just have looked up the garret stair.' + +'You have been redding up the garret again!' + +'Not what you could call a redd up.' + +'O, woman, woman, I believe you have not been in bed at all!' + +'You see me in it.' + +'My opinion is that you jumped into bed when you heard me open the door.' + +'Havers.' + +'Did you?' + +'No.' + +'Well, then, when you heard me at the gate?' + +'It might have been when I heard you at the gate.' + +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.' + +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. + +But there were times, she held, when Carlyle must have made his wife a +glorious woman. 'As when?' I might inquire. + +'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!"' + +'And then,' I might point out, 'he would roar to her to shut the door.' + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +She put it pitiful clear, he replied with a groan. + +But she was like another woman to him when he appeared before her on his +way to the polling-booth. + +'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. + +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.' + +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:-- + +'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.' + +'Oh, that weary writing!' + +'I can do no more, mother, so you must come down and stop him.' + +'I have no power over him,' my mother says, but she rises smiling, and +presently she is opening my door. + +'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. + +'In the last five minutes,' I begin, 'one can often do more than in the +first hour.' + +'Many a time I've said it in my young days,' she says slowly. + +'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. + +'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.' + +I hear such a little cry from near the door. + +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.' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--HER MAID OF ALL WORK + + +And sometimes I was her maid of all work. + +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. + +'I'm sweer to waken him--I doubt he was working late--oh, that weary +writing--no, I maunna waken him.' + +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. + +'I will soon make the tea, mother.' + +'Will you?' she says eagerly. It is what she has come to me for, but 'It +is a pity to rouse you,' she says. + +'And I will take charge of the house to-day, and light the fires and wash +the dishes--' + +'Na, oh no; no, I couldna ask that of you, and you an author.' + +'It won't be the first time, mother, since I was an author.' + +'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. + +Knock at the door. It is the baker. I take in the bread, looking so +sternly at him that he dare not smile. + +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.) + +Furious knocking in a remote part. This means that the author is in the +coal cellar. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Oh, that weary writing!' + +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!' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Have you been in the east room since you came in?' she asks, with +apparent indifference. + +'No; why do you ask?' + +'Oh, I just thought you might have looked in.' + +'Is there anything new there?' + +'I dinna say there is, but--but just go and see.' + +'There can't be anything new if you kept the door barred,' I say +cleverly. + +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. + +'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. + +'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. + +'Fifteen shillings he wanted,' she cries, 'but what do you think I beat +him down to?' + +'Seven and sixpence?' + +She claps her hands with delight. 'Four shillings, as I'm a living +woman!' she crows: never was a woman fonder of a bargain. + +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.' + +'Four shillings to a penny!' says my mother. + +'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?' + +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.' + +'Were there bairns in the cart?' + +'There might have been a bit lassie in the cart.' + +'I thought as much. What did you give her? I heard you in the pantry.' + +'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. + +'So there is,' she says, concealing her hand. + +'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!' + +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! + +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. + +'I suppose you are terrible thrang,' she says. + +'Well, I am rather busy, but--what is it you want me to do?' + +'It would be a shame to ask you.' + +'Still, ask me.' + +'I am so terrified they may be filed.' + +'You want me to--?' + +'If you would just come up, and help me to fold the sheets!' + +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-- + +'Where did you put the carrot-grater?' + +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. + +'Then what did you grate the carrots on?' asks the voice, and the +door-handle is shaken just as I shake Albert. + +'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. + +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. + +'Just look at that, mother!' + +'Is it a dish-cloth?' + +'That's what it is now.' + +'Losh behears! it's one of the new table-napkins.' + +'That's what it was. He has been polishing the kitchen grate with it!' + +(I remember!) + +'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!' + +'It defies the face of clay, mother, to fathom what makes him so +senseless.' + +'Oh, it's that weary writing.' + +'And the worst of it is he will talk to-morrow as if he had done +wonders.' + +'That's the way with the whole clanjam-fray of them.' + +'Yes, but as usual you will humour him, mother.' + +'Oh, well, it pleases him, you see,' says my mother, 'and we can have our +laugh when his door's shut.' + +'He is most terribly handless.' + +'He is all that, but, poor soul, he does his best.' + + + + +CHAPTER VII--R. L. S. + + +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. + +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. + +'You have not read any of them,' I reminded her. + +'And never will,' said she with spirit. + +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:-- + +'You have been sitting very quietly, mother.' + +'I always sit quietly, I never do anything, I'm just a finished +stocking.' + +'Have you been reading?' + +'Do I ever read at this time of day?' + +'What is that in your lap?' + +'Just my apron.' + +'Is that a book beneath the apron?' + +'It might be a book.' + +'Let me see.' + +'Go away with you to your work.' + +But I lifted the apron. 'Why, it's "The Master of Ballantrae!"' I +exclaimed, shocked. + +'So it is!' said my mother, equally surprised. But I looked sternly at +her, and perhaps she blushed. + +'Well what do you think: not nearly equal to mine?' said I with humour. + +'Nothing like them,' she said determinedly. + +'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. + +'I'm no that kind,' replied my mother. + +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. + +'Am I to be a wall-flower?' asked James Durie reproachfully. (It must +have been leap-year.) + +'Speak lower,' replied my mother, with an uneasy look at me. + +'Pooh!' said James contemptuously, 'that kail-runtle!' + +'I winna have him miscalled,' said my mother, frowning. + +'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. + +'A prettier sound that,' said he, clanking his sword again, 'than the +clack-clack of your young friend's shuttle.' + +'Whist!' cried my mother, who had seen me dip. + +'Then give me your arm,' said James, lowering his voice. + +'I dare not,' answered my mother. 'He's so touchy about you.' + +'Come, come,' he pressed her, 'you are certain to do it sooner or later, +so why not now?' + +'Wait till he has gone for his walk,' said my mother; 'and, forbye that, +I'm ower old to dance with you.' + +'How old are you?' he inquired. + +'You're gey an' pert!' cried my mother. + +'Are you seventy?' + +'Off and on,' she admitted. + +'Pooh,' he said, 'a mere girl!' + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +'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?' + +'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!' + +'There are none of those one-legged scoundrels in my books,' I say. + +'Better without them,' she replies promptly. + +'I wonder, mother, what it is about the man that so infatuates the +public?' + +'He takes no hold of me,' she insists. 'I would a hantle rather read +your books.' + +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.' + +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.' + +'But if he had been your son?' + +'But he is not.' + +'You wish he were?' + +'I dinna deny but what I could have found room for him.' + +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. + +'I have a letter from--' + +'So I have heard.' + +'Would you like to hear it?' + +'No.' + +'Can you not abide him?' + +'I cauna thole him.' + +'Is he a black?' + +'He is all that.' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--A PANIC IN THE HOUSE + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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:-- + +'I think you are not feeling well to-day?' + +'I am perfectly well.' + +'Where is the pain?' + +'I have no pain to speak of.' + +'Is it at your heart?' + +'No.' + +'Is your breathing hurting you?' + +'Not it.' + +'Do you feel those stounds in your head again?' + +'No, no, I tell you there is nothing the matter with me.' + +'Have you a pain in your side?' + +'Really, it's most provoking I canna put my hand to my side without your +thinking I have a pain there.' + +'You have a pain in your side!' + +'I might have a pain in my side.' + +'And you were trying to hide it! Is it very painful?' + +'It's--it's no so bad but what I can bear it.' + +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.' + +'Did he tell you to say that?' asks my sister sharply. + +'I say it of my own free will.' + +'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.' + +'Maybe he did, but I think we should get one.' + +'Not for my sake,' says my sister obstinately, and then my mother comes +ben to me to say delightedly, 'She winna listen to reason!' + +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:-- + +'She will go early to her bed.' + +'She needna often be seen upstairs.' + +'We'll set her to the walking every day.' + +'There will be a many errands for her to run. We'll tell her to take her +time over them.' + +'Three times she shall go to the kirk every Sabbath, and we'll egg her on +to attending the lectures in the hall.' + +'She is sure to have friends in the town. We'll let her visit them +often.' + +'If she dares to come into your room, mother!' + +'Mind this, every one of you, servant or no servant, I fold all the linen +mysel.' + +'She shall not get cleaning out the east room.' + +'Nor putting my chest of drawers in order.' + +'Nor tidying up my manuscripts.' + +'I hope she's a reader, though. You could set her down with a book, and +then close the door canny on her.' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--MY HEROINE. + + +When it was known that I had begun another story my mother might ask what +it was to be about this time. + +'Fine we can guess who it is about,' my sister would say pointedly. + +'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. + +My sister scorned her at such times. 'What woman is in all his books?' +she would demand. + +'I'm sure I canna say,' replies my mother determinedly. 'I thought the +women were different every time.' + +'Mother, I wonder you can be so audacious! Fine you know what woman I +mean.' + +'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). + +'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.' + +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!' + +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. + +'That's a way to behave!' cries my sister. + +'I cannot help it,' my mother gasps. + +'And there's nothing to laugh at.' + +'It's that woman,' my mother explains unnecessarily. + +'Maybe she's not the woman you think her,' I say, crushed. + +'Maybe not,' says my mother doubtfully. 'What was her name?' + +'Her name,' I answer with triumph, 'was not Margaret'; but this makes her +ripple again. 'I have so many names nowadays,' she mutters. + +'H'sh!' says my father, and the reading is resumed. + +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. + +'What are you laughing at now?' says my sister severely. 'Do you not +hear that she was a tall, majestic woman?' + +'It's the first time I ever heard it said of her,' replies my mother. + +'But she is.' + +'Ke fy, havers!' + +'The book says it.' + +'There will be a many queer things in the book. What was she wearing?' + +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.' + +The woman on the path was eighteen years of age, and of remarkable +beauty. + +'That settles you,' says my sister. + +'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. + +'Pooh!' says she, well pleased. + +'Were you plain, then?' we ask. + +'Sal,' she replies briskly, 'I was far from plain.' + +'H'sh!' + +Perhaps in the next chapter this lady (or another) appears in a carriage. + +'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. + +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!' + +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?' + +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. + +'You see Jess is not really you,' I begin inquiringly. + +'Oh no, she is another kind of woman altogether,' my mother says, and +then spoils the compliment by adding naively, 'She had but two rooms and +I have six.' + +I sigh. 'Without counting the pantry, and it's a great big pantry,' she +mutters. + +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--' + +'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.' + +'Still, there is no denying that Jess had the same ambition.' + +'She had, but to her two-roomed house she had to stick all her born days. +Was that like me?' + +'No, but she wanted--' + +'She wanted, and I wanted, but I got and she didna. That's the +difference betwixt her and me.' + +'If that is all the difference, it is little credit I can claim for +having created her.' + +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?' + +'Well, she had no silk, but you remember how she got that cloak with +beads.' + +'An eleven and a bit! Hoots, what was that to boast of! I tell you, +every single yard of my silk cost--' + +'Mother, that is the very way Jess spoke about her cloak!' + +She lets this pass, perhaps without hearing it, for solicitude about her +silk has hurried her to the wardrobe where it hangs. + +'Ah, mother, I am afraid that was very like Jess!' + +'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!' + +'I don't believe that is what you would have done, mother.' + +Then a sweeter expression would come into her face. 'No,' she would say +reflectively, 'it's not.' + +'What would you have done? I think I know.' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'Maybe, but though I hadna boasted about my silk I would have wanted to +do it.' + +'Just as Jess would have been fidgeting to show off her eleven and a +bit!' + +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. + +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!' + +'But Margaret is not you.' + +'N-no, oh no. She had a very different life from mine. I never let on +to a soul that she is me!' + +'She was not meant to be you when I began. Mother, what a way you have +of coming creeping in!' + +'You should keep better watch on yourself.' + +'Perhaps if I had called Margaret by some other name--' + +'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.' + +'Babbie, you see, kept close to the garden-wall.' + +'It's not the wall up at the manse that would have hidden her from me.' + +'She came out in the dark.' + +'I'm thinking she would have found me looking for her with a candle.' + +'And Gavin was secretive.' + +'That would have put me on my mettle.' + +'She never suspected anything.' + +'I wonder at her.' + +But my new heroine is to be a child. What has madam to say to that? + +A child! Yes, she has something to say even to that. 'This beats all!' +are the words. + +'Come, come, mother, I see what you are thinking, but I assure you that +this time--' + +'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.' + +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?' + +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.' + +'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?' + +'I remember.' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'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?' + +'Mother, the little girl in my story wears a magenta frock and a white +pinafore.' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'And a fell ugly one!' + +'The most beautiful one I shall ever see.' + +'I wonder to hear you say it. Look at my wrinkled auld face.' + +'It is the sweetest face in all the world.' + +'See how the rings drop off my poor wasted finger.' + +'There will always be someone nigh, mother, to put them on again.' + +'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?"' + +I remembered. + +'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.' + +'Your hopes and ambitions were so simple,' I would say, but she did not +like that. 'They werena that simple,' she would answer, flushing. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER X--ART THOU AFRAID HIS POWER SHALL FAIL? + + +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. + +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-- + + Art thou afraid his power shall fail + When comes thy evil day? + And can an all-creating arm + Grow weary or decay? + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +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?' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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, + + Art thou afraid His power fail + When comes thy evil day? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + * * * * * + + THE END + + * * * * * + + * * * * * + + Edinburgh: T. and A. 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