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diff --git a/old/marog10.txt b/old/marog10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7306f17 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/marog10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3513 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Margaret Ogilvy, by J. M. Barrie + +The author of Peter Pan writes about his mother, Margaret Ogilvy + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +Margaret Ogilvy + +by James M. 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Barrie. 1897 edition. +Scanned and proofed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +MARGARET OGILVY + + + + + +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 +goodbye 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. + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Margaret Ogilvy, by J. M. Barrie + |