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diff --git a/49906.txt b/49906.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d930471 --- /dev/null +++ b/49906.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1954 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Daft Days, by Neil Munro + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: The Daft Days + + +Author: Neil Munro + + + +Release Date: September 7, 2015 [eBook #49906] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DAFT DAYS*** + + +credit + + + +This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler + + _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_. + + * * * * * + + UNIFORM EDITION, Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. + +DOOM CASTLE. A ROMANCE. + + "He may now be ranked with absolute confidence among the small + company of novelists whose work really counts as + literature."--_Pall Mall Gazette_. + + "Inspires reader and reviewer with deep gratitude and + admiration."--_Spectator_. + +JOHN SPLENDID. THE TALE OF A POOR GENTLEMAN AND THE LITTLE WARS OF +LORNE. + + "A masterly and most interesting novel."--_Times_. + + "An achievement of rare merit and distinction."--_Pall Mall + Gazette_. + +THE LOST PIBROCH, AND OTHER SHEILING STORIES. + +Mr ANDREW LANG says: "In 'The Lost Pibroch' we meet genius as obvious +and undeniable as that of Mr Kipling. Mr Munro's powers are directed +to old Highland life, and he does what genius alone can do--he makes +it alive again, and makes our imagination share its life--his +knowledge being copious, original, at first hand." + +CHILDREN OF TEMPEST. + + "More than a good story. It is a downright good book, realistic, + powerful, and effective, absolutely perfect in its picturing of + the simple, sturdy seafolk of Uist and the Outer Isles of the + West."--_Daily Telegraph_. + +SHOES OF FORTUNE. + + "Readable from cover to cover."--_Evening Standard_. + +GILIAN THE DREAMER. + + "We earnestly hope Mr Munro will give us more of such + things."--_Liverpool Courier_. + + * * * * * + + WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH AND LONDON. + + _The Daft Days_ + + + * * * * * + + BY + NEIL MUNRO + + AUTHOR OF + 'JOHN SPLENDID,' 'THE LOST PIBROCH,' ETC., ETC. + + * * * * * + + _SHILLING EDITION_ + + * * * * * + + WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS + EDINBURGH AND LONDON + MCMIX + + * * * * * + + _All Rights reserved_ + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +THE town's bell rang through the dark of the winter morning with queer +little jolts and pauses, as if Wanton Wully Oliver, the ringer, had been +jovial the night before. A blithe New-Year-time bell; a droll, daft, +scatter-brained bell; it gave no horrid alarums, no solemn reminders that +commonly toll from steeples and make good-fellows melancholy to think +upon things undone, the brevity of days and years, the parting of good +company, but a cheery ditty--"boom, boom, ding-a-dong boom, boom ding, +hic, ding-dong," infecting whoever heard it with a kind of foolish +gaiety. The burgh town turned on its pillows, drew up its feet from the +bed-bottles, last night hot, now turned to chilly stone, rubbed its eyes, +and knew by that bell it was the daftest of the daft days come. It cast +a merry spell on the community; it tickled them even in their cosy beds. +"Wanton Wully's on the ran-dan!" said the folk, and rose quickly, and ran +to pull aside screens and blinds to look out in the dark on window-ledges +cushioned deep in snow. The children hugged themselves under the +blankets, and told each other in whispers it was not a porridge morning, +no, nor Sunday, but a breakfast of shortbread, ham and eggs; and behold! +a beautiful loud drum, careless as 'twere a reveille of hot wild youths, +began to beat in a distant lane. Behind the house of Dyce the lawyer, a +cock that must have been young and hearty crew like to burst; and at the +stables of the post-office the man who housed his horses after bringing +the morning mail through night and storm from a distant railway station +sang a song,-- + +"A damsel possessed of great beauty + Stood near by her own father's gate: +The gallant hussars were on duty; + To view them this maiden did wait. +Their horses were capering and prancing, + Their accoutrements shone like a star; +From the plains they were quickly advancing,-- + She espied her own gallant hussar." + +"Mercy on us! six o'clock!" cried Miss Dyce, with a startled jump from +her dreams to the floor of her bedroom. "Six o'clock on the New Year's +morning, and I'll warrant that randy Kate is sound asleep yet," she said, +and quickly clad herself and went to the head of the stair and cried, +"Kate, Kate! are ye up yet, Kate? Are ye hearing me, Kate MacNeill?" + +From the cavern dark of the lower storey there came back no answer. + +She stood with a curious twirly wooden candlestick in her hand in the +midst of a house that was dead dumb and desperate dark, and smelled +deliciously of things to eat. Even herself, who had been at the making +of most of them the day before, and had, by God's grace, still much of a +child's appetite, could not but sniff with a childish satisfaction at +this air of a celestial grocery--of plum-puddings and currant-buns, +apples and oranges, cordials and spices, toffee and the angelic treacly +sweet we call Black Man,--her face lit rosily by the candle lowe, a woman +small and soft and sappy, with the most wanton reddish hair, and a +briskness of body that showed no sign as yet of her accomplished years. +What they were I will never tell you; but this I'll say, that even if +they had been eighty she was the kind to cheerily dance quadrille. The +daft bell, so plainly in the jovial mood of Wanton Wully Oliver, infected +her: she smiled to herself in a way she had when remembering droll things +or just for simple jollity, and whoever saw Bell Dyce smile to herself +had never the least doubt after that she was a darling. Over the +tenements of the town the song of the bell went rollicking, and in its +hiccupping pauses went wonderfully another sound far, far removed in +spirit and suggestion--the clang of wild geese calling: the "honk, honk" +of the ganders and the challenge of their ladies come down adrift in the +snow from the bitter north. + +But there was no answer from the maid in the kitchen. She had rolled +less deliberately than was usual from her blankets to the summons of the +six o'clock bell, and already, with the kitchen window open, her +bounteous form surged over the two sashes that were always so +conveniently low and handy for a gossip with any friendly passer-by on +the pavement. She drank the air of the clean chill morning dark, a heady +thing like old Tom Watson's autumn ale, full of the sentiment of the daft +days. She tilted an ear to catch the tune of the mail-boy's song that +now was echoing mellow from the cobwebbed gloom of the stable stalls, and +making a snowball from the drift of the window-ledge she threw it, +womanwise, aimlessly into the street with a pretence at combat. The +chill of the snow stung sweet in the hot palm of her, for she was young +and strong. + +"Kate, you wretch!" cried a voice behind her. She drew in her head, to +find her mistress in the kitchen with the candlestick in her hand. + +"Oh, m'em," cried the maid, no way abashed, banging up the window and +hurriedly crushing her more ample parts under the final hooks and eyes of +her morning wrapper--"oh, m'em, what a start you gave me! I'm all in a +p-p-palpitation. I was just takin' one mouthful of air and thinkin' to +myself yonder in the Gaelic that it was time for me to be comin' in and +risin' right." + +"A Happy New Year to you, Kate MacNeill," said the mistress, taking her +hand. + +"Just that, just that! and the same to you yourself, Miss Dyce. I'm +feeling fine; I'm that glad with everything," said the maid, in some +confusion at this unusual relation with her mistress. She shook the +proffered hand rapidly from side to side as if it were an egg-switch. + +"And see and get the fires on quick now, like a good lass. It would +never do to be starting the New Year late,--it would be unlucky. I was +crying to you yonder from the stair-head, and wondering if you were ill, +that you did not answer me so quickly as you do for ordinar'." + +"Ill, Miss Dyce!" cried the maid astounded. "Do you think I'm daft to be +ill on a New Year's day?" + +"After yon--after yon shortbread you ate yesterday I would not have +wondered much if you were," said Miss Dyce, shaking her head solemnly. +"I'm not complaining, but, dear me! it was an awful lump; and I thought +it would be a bonny-like thing too, if our first-foot had to be the +doctor." + +"Doctor! I declare to goodness I never had need of a doctor to me since +Dr Macphee in Colonsay put me in order with oil and things after I had +the measles," exclaimed the maid, as if mankind were like wag-at-the-wa' +clocks and could be guaranteed to go right for years if you blew through +them with a pair of bellows, or touched their works with an oily feather. + +"Never mind about the measles just now, Kate," said Miss Dyce, with a +meaning look at the blackout fire. + +"Neither I was mindin' them, m'em,--I don't care a spittle for them; it's +so long ago I would not know them if I saw them; I was just--" + +"But get your fire on. You know we have a lot to do to-day to get +everything nice and ready for my nephew who comes from America with the +four o'clock coach." + +"America!" cried the maid, dropping a saucepan lid on the floor in her +astonishment. "My stars! Did I not think it was from Chickagoo?" + +"And Chicago is in America, Kate," said her mistress. + +"Is it? is it? Mercy on me, how was Kate to know? I only got part of my +education,--up to the place where you carry one and add ten. America! +Dear me, just fancy! The very place that I'm so keen to go to. If I had +the money, and was in America--" + +It was a familiar theme; Kate had not got fully started on it when her +mistress fled from the kitchen and set briskly about her morning affairs. + +And gradually the household of Dyce the lawyer awoke wholly to a day of +unaccustomed stillness and sound, for the deep snow piled in the street +and hushed the traffic of wheel, and hoof, and shoe, but otherwise the +morning was cheerful with New Year's day noise. For the bell-ringing of +Wanton Wully was scarcely done, died down in a kind of brazen chuckle, +and the "honk, honk" of the wild geese sped seaward over gardens and back +lanes, strange wild music of the north, far-fetched and undomestic,--when +the fife band shrilly tootled through the town to the tune of "Hey, +Johnny Cope, are ye waukin' yet?" Ah, they were the proud, proud men, +their heads dizzy with glory and last night's wine, their tread on air. +John Taggart drummed--a mighty drummer, drunk or sober, who so loved his +instrument he sometimes went to bed with it still fastened to his neck, +and banged to-day like Banagher, who banged furiously, never minding the +tune much, but happy if so be that he made noise enough. And the fifers +were not long gone down the town, all with the wrong step but Johnny +Vicar, as his mother thought, when the snow was trampled under the feet +of playing children, and women ran out of their houses, and crossed the +street, some of them, I declare, to kiss each other, for 'tis a fashion +lately come, and most genteel, grown wonderfully common in Scotland. +Right down the middle of the town, with two small flags in his hat and +holly in the lapel of his coat, went old Divine the hawker, with a great +barrow of pure gold, crying "Fine Venetian oranges! wha'll buy sweet +Venetian oranges? Nane o' your foreign trash. Oranges! Oranges!--rale +New Year oranges, three a penny; bloods, a bawbee each!" + +The shops opened just for an hour for fear anybody might want anything, +and many there were, you may be sure, who did, for they had eaten and +drunken everything provided the night before--which we call +Hogmanay,--and now there were currant-loaves and sweety biscuits to buy; +shortcake, sugar and lemons, ginger cordial for the boys and girls and +United Presbyterians, boiled ham for country cousins who might come +unexpected, and P. & A. MacGlashan's threepenny mutton-pies (twopence if +you brought the ashet back), ordinarily only to be had on fair-days and +on Saturdays, and far renowned for value. + +Miss Minto's Millinery and Manteau Emporium was discovered at daylight to +have magically outlined its doors and windows during the night with +garlands and festoons of spruce and holly, whereon the white rose bloomed +in snow; and Miss Minto herself, in a splendid crimson cloak down to the +heels, and cheeks like cherries, was standing with mittens and her five +finger-rings on, in the middle door, saying in beautiful gentle English +"A Happy New Year" to every one who passed--even to George Jordon, the +common cowherd, who was always a little funny in his intellects, and, +because his trousers were bell-mouthed and hid his feet, could never +remember whether he was going to his work or coming from it, unless he +consulted the Schoolmaster. "The same to you, m'em, excuse my hands," +said poor George, just touching the tips of her fingers. Then, because +he had been stopped and slewed a little from his course, he just went +back the way he had come. + +Too late got up the red-faced sun, too late to laugh at Wanton Wully's +jovial bell, too late for Taggart's mighty drumming, but a jolly winter +sun,--'twas all that was wanted among the chimneys to make the day +complete. + +First of all to rise in Dyce's house, after the mistress and the maid, +was the master, Daniel Dyce himself. + +And now I will tell you all about Daniel Dyce: it is that behind his back +he was known as Cheery Dan. + +"Your bath is ready, Dan," his sister had cried, and he rose and went +with chittering teeth to it, looked at it a moment, and put a hand in the +water. It was as cold as ice, because that water, drinking which, men +never age, comes from high mountain bens. + +"That for ye to-day!" said he to the bath, snapping his fingers. "I'll +see ye far enough first!" And contented himself with a slighter wash +than usual, and shaving. As he shaved he hummed all the time, as was his +habit, an ancient air of his boyhood; to-day it was + +"Star of Peace, to wanderers weary," + +with not much tone but a great conviction,--a tall, lean, clean-shaven +man of over fifty, with a fine long nose, a ruddy cheek, keen grey eyes, +and plenty of room in his clothes, the pockets of him so large and open +it was no wonder so many people tried, as it were, to put their hands +into them. And when he was dressed he did a droll thing, for from one of +his pockets he took what hereabouts we call a pea-sling, that to the rest +of the world is a catapult, and having shut one eye, and aimed with the +weapon, and snapped the rubber several times with amazing gravity, he +went upstairs into an attic and laid it on a table at the window with a +pencilled note, in which he wrote-- + + A NEW YEAR'S DAY PRESENT + FOR A GOOD BOY + FROM + AN UNCLE WHO DOES NOT LIKE CATS. + +He looked round the little room that seemed very bright and cheerful, for +its window gazed over the garden to the east and to the valley where was +seen the King's highway. "Wonderful! wonderful!" he said to himself. +"They have made an extraordinary job of it. Very nice indeed, but just a +shade ladylike. A stirring boy would prefer fewer fal-lals." + +There was little indeed to suggest the occupation of a stirring boy in +that attic, with its draped dressing-table in lilac print, its +looking-glass flounced in muslin and pink lover's-knots, its bower-like +bed canopied and curtained with green lawn, its shy scent of pot-pourri +and lavender. A framed text in crimson wools, the work of Bell Dyce when +she was in Miss Mushet's seminary, hung over the mantelpiece enjoining +all beholders to + + WATCH AND PRAY. + +Mr Dyce put both hands into his trousers pockets, bent a little, and +heaved in a sort of chirruping laughter. "Man's whole duty, according to +Bell Dyce," he said, "'Watch and Pray'; but they do not need to have the +lesson before them continually yonder in Chicago, I'll warrant. Yon's +the place for watching, by all accounts, however it may be about the +prayer. 'Watch and Pray'--h'm! It should be Watch _or_ Pray--it clearly +cannot be both at once with the world the way it is; you might as well +expect a man to eat pease-meal and whistle strathspeys at the same time." + +He was humming "Star of Peace"--for the tune he started the morning with +usually lasted him all day,--and standing in the middle of the floor +contemplating with amusement the ladylike adornment of the room prepared +for his Chicago nephew, when a light step fell on the attic stairs, and a +woman's voice cried, "Dan! Dan Dyce! Coo-ee!" + +He did not answer. + +She cried again after coming up a step or two more, but still he did not +answer. He slid behind one of the bed-curtains. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +ALISON DYCE came lightly up the rest of the stair, whistling blithely, in +spite of her sister Bell's old notion that whistling women and crowing +hens are never canny. She swept into the room. People in the +town--which has a forest of wood and deer behind it--used to say she had +the tread and carriage of a young wild roe, and I can well assure you she +was the girl to walk with on a winter day! She had in her hand a book of +poems called 'The Golden Treasury' and a spray of the herb called +Honesty, that thrives in poor men's gardens. Having laid them down on +the table without noticing her brother's extraordinary Present for a Good +Boy, she turned about and fondled things. She smoothed the bed-clothes +as if they covered a child, she patted the chair-backs with an air of +benediction, she took cushions to her breast like one that cuddled them, +and when she touched the mantel-piece ornaments they could not help it +but must start to chime. It was always a joy to see Alison Dyce +redding-up, as we say; though in housewifery, like sewing, knitting, and +cooking, she was only a poor second to her sister Bell. She tried, from +duty, to like these occupations, but, oh dear! the task was beyond her: +whatever she had learned from her schooling in Edinburgh and Brussels, it +was not the darning of hose and the covering of rhubarb-tarts. + +Her gift, said Bell, was management. + +Tripping round the little attic, she came back by-and-by to the table at +the window to take one last wee glimpse inside 'The Golden Treasury,' +that was her own delight and her notion of happy half-hours for the ideal +boy, and her eye fell for the first time on the pea-sling and the note +beside it. + +She read, and laughed, and upon my word, if laughter like Ailie Dyce's +could be bought in perforated rolls, there would be no demand for Chopin +and Schumann on the pianolas. It was a laugh that even her brother could +not resist: a paroxysm of coughing burst from behind the curtains, and he +came out beside her chuckling. + +"I reckoned without my hoast," said he, gasping. + +"I was sure you were upstairs," said Alison. "You silly man! Upon my +word! Where's your dignity, Mr Dyce?" + +Dan Dyce stood for a second a little bit abashed, rubbing his chin and +blinking his eyes as if their fun was a thing to be kept from brimming +over. "I'm a great wag!" said he. "If it's dignity you're after, just +look at my velvet coat!" and so saying he caught the ends of his coat +skirts with his fingers, held them out at arm's-length, and turned round +as he might do at a fit-on in his tailor's, laughing till his hoast came +on again. "Dignity, quo' she, just look at my velvet coat!" + +"Dan, Dan! will you never be wise?" said Ailie Dyce, a humorsome +demoiselle herself, if you believe me. + +"Not if I keep my health," said he. "You have made a bonny-like show of +the old garret, between the two of you. It's as smart as a lass at her +first ball." + +"I think it's very nice; at least it might be worse," interrupted Alison +defensively, glancing round with satisfaction and an eye to the hang of +the frame round "Watch and Pray." Bell's wool-work never agreed with her +notions, but, as she knew that her tarts never agreed with Bell, she +kept, on that point, aye discreetly dumb. + +"Poor little Chicago!" said her brother. "I'm vexed for the wee fellow. +Print chintz, or chint prints, or whatever it is; sampler texts, and +scent, and poetry books--what in the world is the boy to break?" + +"Oh, you have seen to that department, Dan!" said Ailie, taking the +pea-sling again in her hand. "'A New Year's Day Present for a Good Boy +from an Uncle who does not like Cats.' I declare that _is_ a delightful +way of making the child feel quite at home at once." + +"Tuts! 'Tis just a diversion. I know it'll cheer him wonderfully to +find at the start that if there's no young folk in the house there's some +of the eternal Prank. I suppose there are cats in Chicago. He cannot +expect us to provide him with pigs, which are the usual domestic pets +there, I believe. You let my pea-sling alone, Ailie; you'll find it will +please him more than all the poetry and pink bows. I was once a boy +myself, and I know." + +"You were never anything else," said Alison. "And never will be anything +else. It is a pity to let the child see at the very start what an +irresponsible person his uncle is; and besides, it's cruel to throw +stones at cats." + +"Not at all, not at all!" said her brother briskly, with his head +quizzically to the side a little, in a way he had when debating in the +Court. "I have been throwing stones for twenty years at those cats of +Rodger's that live in our garden and I never hit one yet. They're all +about six inches too short for genuine sport. If cats were Dachshund +dogs, and I wasn't so fond of dogs, I would be deadly. But my ado with +cats is just one of the manly old British sports, like trout-fishing and +curling. You take your fun out in anticipation, and the only difference +is you never need to carry a flask. Still, I'm not without hope that my +nephew from Chicago may have a better aim than I have." + +"You are an old--an old goose, Dan Dyce, and a Happy New Year to you!" +said his sister, putting her arms suddenly round his neck and kissing +him. + +"Tuts! the coming of that child's ta'en your head," said the brother, +reddening, for sisters never kiss their own brothers in our part,--it's +so sentimental, it's so like the penny stories. "A Good New Year to you, +Ailie," and "Tuts!" he said again, looking quite upset, till Ailie +laughed and put her arm through his and drew him downstairs to the +breakfast to which she had come to summon him. + +The Chicago child's bedroom, left to itself, chilly a bit like Highland +weather, but honest and clean, looked more like a bower than ever: the +morning sun, peeping over garden trees and the chimneys of the lanes, +gazed particularly on the table where the pea-sling and the poetry book +lay together. + +And now the town was thronged like a fair-day, with such stirring things +happening every moment in the street that the servant, Kate, had a +constant head out at the window, "putting by the time," as she explained +to the passing inquirer, "till the Mustress would be ready for the +breakfast." That was Kate,--she had come from an island where they make +the most of everything that may be news, even if it's only brandy-sauce +to pudding at the minister's; and Miss Dyce could not start cutting a new +bodice or sewing a button on her brother's trousers but the maid billowed +out upon the window-sash to tell the tidings to the first of her sex that +passed. + +Over the trodden snow she saw the people from the country crowd in their +Sunday clothes, looking pretty early in the day for gaiety, all with +scent on their handkerchiefs (which is the odour of festive days for a +hundred miles round burgh towns); and town people, less splendid in +attire, as folk that know the difference between a holiday and a Sabbath, +and leave their religious hard hats at home on a New Year's day; +children, too, replete with bun already, and all succulent with the juice +of Divine's oranges. She heard the bell begin to peal again, for Wully +Oliver--fie on Wully Oliver!--had been met by some boys who told him the +six o'clock bell was not yet rung, and sent him back to perform an office +he had done with hours before. He went to his bell dubiously, something +in the dizzy abyss he called his mind that half convinced him he had rung +it already. + +"Let me pause and consider," he said once or twice when being urged to +the rope, scratching the hair behind his ears with both hands, his +gesture of reflection. "Was there no' a bairn--an auld-fashioned +bairn--helped to ca' the bell already, and wanted to gie me money for the +chance? It runs in my mind there was a bairn, and that she had us aye +boil-boiling away at eggs; but maybe I'm wrong, for I'll admit I had a +dram or two and lost the place. I don't believe in dram-dram-dramming, +but I aye say if you take a dram, take it in the morning and you get the +good of it all day. It's a tip I learned in the Crimea." But at last +they convinced him the bairn was just imagination, and Wanton Wully +Oliver spat on his hands and grasped the rope, and so it happened that +the morning bell on the New Year's day on which my story opens was twice +rung. + +The Dyce handmaid heard it pealing as she hung over the window-sash with +her cap agee on her head. She heard from every quarter--from lanes, +closes, tavern rooms, high attics, and back-yards--fifes playing; it was +as if she leaned over a magic grove of great big birds, each singing its +own song--"Come to the Bower," or "Monymusk," or "The Girl I left Behind +Me," noble airs wherein the captain of the band looked for a certain +perfection from his musicians before they marched out again at midday. +"For," said he often in rehearsals, "anything will do in the way of a +tune in the dark, my sunny boys, but it must be the tiptop of skill, and +no discordancy, when the eyes of the world are on us. One turn more at +'Monymusk,' sunny boys, and then we'll have a skelp at yon tune of my own +composure." + +Besides the sound of the bell and the universal practice of the fifes +there were loud vocalists at the Cross, and such laughter in the street +that Kate was in an ecstasy. Once, uplifted beyond all private decorum, +she kilted her gown and gave a step of a reel in her kitchen solitude. + +"Isn't it cheery, the noise!" she exclaimed delightly to the +letter-carrier who came to the window with the morning's letters. "Oh, I +am feeling beautiful! It is--it is--it is just like being inside a pair +of bagpipes." + +He was a man who roared, the postman, being used to bawling up long +common-stairs in the tenements for the people to come down to the foot +themselves for their letters--a man with one roguish eye for the maiden +and another at random. Passing in the letters one by one, he said in +tones that on a quieter day might be heard half up the street, "Nothing +for you, yourself, personally, Kate, but maybe there'll be one to-morrow. +Three big blue anes and seven wee anes for the man o' business himsel', +twa for Miss Dyce (she's the wonderfu' correspondent!), and ane for Miss +Alison wi' the smell o' scented perfume on't--that'll be frae the Miss +Birds o' Edinburgh. And I near forgot--here's a post-caird for Miss +Dyce: hearken to this-- + +"'Child arrived Liverpool yesterday; left this morning for Scotland. +Quite safe to go alone, charge of conductor. Pip, pip! Molyneux.'" + +"Whatna child is it, Kate?" + +"'Pip, pip!' What in the world's 'Pip, pip'? The child is brother +William's child, to be sure," said Kate, who always referred to the Dyce +relations as if they were her own. "You have heard of brother William?" + +"Him that was married on the play-actress and never wrote home?" shouted +the letter-carrier. "He went away before my time. Go on; quick, for I'm +in a desperate hurry this mornin'." + +"Well, he died abroad in Chickagoo. God have mercy on him dying so far +away from home, and him without a word of Gaelic in his head! and a +friend o' his father 's bringing the boy home to his aunties." + +"Where in the world's Chickagoo?" bellowed the postman. + +"In America, of course,--where else would it be but in America?" said +Kate contemptuously. "Where is your education not to know that Chickagoo +is in America, where the servant-maids have a pound a-week of wages, and +learn the piano, and can get married when they like quite easy?" + +"Bless me! do you say so?" cried the postman in amazement, and not +without a pang of jealousy. + +"Yes, I say so!" said Kate in the snappish style she often showed to the +letter-carrier. "And the child is coming this very day with the +coach-and-twice from Maryfield railway station--oh them trains! them +trains! with their accidents; my heart is in my mouth to think of a child +in them. Will you not come round to the back and get the Mustress's New +Year dram? She is going to give a New Year dram to every man that calls +on business this day. But I will not let you in, for it is in my mind +that you would not be a lucky first-foot." + +"Much obleeged," said the postman, "but ye needna be feared. I'm not +allowed to go dramming at my duty. It's offeecial, and I canna help it. +If it was not offeecial, there's few letter-carriers that wouldna need to +hae iron hoops on their heids to keep their brains from burstin' on the +day efter New Year." + +Kate heard a voice behind her, and pulled her head in hurriedly with a +gasp, and a cry of "Mercy, the start I got!" while the postman fled on +his rounds. Miss Dyce stood behind, in the kitchen, indignant. + +"You are a perfect heartbreak, Kate," said the mistress. "I have rung +for breakfast twice, and you never heard me, with your clattering out +there to the letter-carrier. It's a pity you cannot marry the glee +party, as Mr Dyce calls him, and be done with it." + +"Me marry him!" cried the maid indignantly. "I think I see myself +marryin' a man like yon, and his eyes not neighbours." + +"That's a trifle in a husband if his heart is good: the letter-carrier's +eyes may--may skew a little, but it's not to be wondered at, considering +the look-out he has to keep on all sides of him to keep out of reach of +every trollop in the town who wants to marry him." + +And leaving Kate speechless at this accusation, the mistress of the house +took the letters from her hands and went to the breakfast-table with +them. + +She had read the contents of the post-card before she reached the +parlour; its news dismayed her. + +"Just imagine!" she cried. "Here's that bairn on his way from Liverpool +his lee-lone, and not a body with him!" + +"What! what!" cried Mr Dyce, whose eyes had been shut to say the grace. +"Isn't that actor-fellow, Molyneux, coming with him, as he promised?" + +Miss Dyce sunk in a chair and burst into tears, crushing the post-card in +her hand. + +"What does he say?" demanded her brother. + +"He says--he says--oh, dear me!--he says 'Pip, pip!'" quoth the weeping +sister. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +"I MISDOUBTED Mr Molyneux from the very first," said Ailie, turning as +white as a clout. "From all his post-cards he was plainly too casual. +Stop it, Bell, my dear--have sense; the child's in a Christian land, and +in care of somebody who is probably more dependable than this delightful +Molyneux." + +Mr Dyce took out an old, thick, silver verge. "Nine o'clock," he said, +with a glance at its creamy countenance. "Molyneux's consignment is +making his first acquaintance with Scottish scenery and finding himself, +I hope, amused at the Edinburgh accent. He'll arrive at Maryfield--poor +wee smout!--at three; if I drive over at twelve, I'll be in time to meet +him. Tuts, Bell, give over; he's a ten-year-old and a Dyce at +that,--there's not the slightest fear of him." + +"Ten years old, and in a foreign country--if you can call Scotland a +foreign country," cried Miss Dyce, still sobbing with anger and grief. +"Oh, the cat-witted scamp, that Molyneux,--if I had him here!" + +The dining-room door opened and let in a yawning dog of most plebeian +aspect, longest lie-abed of the household, the clamour of the street, and +the sound of sizzling bacon, followed by Kate's majestic form at a +stately glide, because she had on her new stiff lilac print that was worn +for breakfast only on Sundays and holidays. "You would think I was never +coming," she said genially, and smiled widely as she put the tray on the +sideboard. This that I show you, I fear, is a beggarly household, +absurdly free from ceremony. Mr Dyce looked at his sister Ailie and +smiled; Ailie looked at her sister Bell and smiled. Bell took a hairpin +or two out of their places and seemed to stab herself with them viciously +in the nape of the neck, and smiled not at all nor said anything, for she +was furious with Molyneux, whom she could see in her mind's eye--an ugly, +tippling, frowsy-looking person with badly polished boots, an impression +that would have greatly amused Mrs Molyneux, who, not without reason, +counted her Jim the handsomest man and the best dressed in the profession +in all Chicago. + +"I'm long of coming, like Royal Charlie," Kate proceeded, as she passed +the ashets on to Miss Dyce; "but, oh me! New Year's day here is no' like +New Year's day in the bonny isle of Colonsay." + +Mr Dyce said grace and abstractedly helped himself alternately from both +ends of a new roll of powdered butter. "Dan, dear, don't take the butter +from both ends,--it spoils the look," said Bell. + +"Tuts!" said he. "What's the odds? There'll be no ends at all when +we're done with it. I'm utterly regardless of the symmetrical and the +beautiful this morning. I'm savage to think of that man Molyneux. If I +was not a man of peace I would be wanting to wring Mr Molyneux's neck," +and he twisted his morning roll in halves with ferocious hands. + +"Dan!" said Ailie, shocked. "I never heard you say anything so +bloodthirsty in all my life before. I would never have thought it of +you." + +"Maybe not," he said. "There's many things about me you never suspected. +You women are always under delusions about the men--about the men--well, +dash it! about the men you like. I know myself so well that there is no +sin, short of one or two not so accounted, that I cannot think myself +capable of. I believe I might be forced into robbing a kirk if I had no +money and was as hungry as I was this morning before that post-card came +to ruin a remarkably fine New-Year's-day appetite, or even into murdering +a man like Molyneux who failed in the simplest duties no man should +neglect." + +"I hope and trust," said Bell, still nervous, "that he is a wiselike boy +with a proper upbringing, who will not be frightened at travelling and +make no mistakes about the train. If he was a Scotch laddie, with the +fear of God in him, I would not be a bit put about for him, for he would +be sure to be asking, asking, and if he felt frightened he would just +start and eat something, like a Christian. But this poor child has no +advantages. Just American!" + +Ailie sat back in her chair, with her teacup in her hand, and laughed, +and Kate laughed quietly--though it beat her to see where the fun was; +and the dog laughed likewise--at least it wagged its tail and twisted its +body and made such extraordinary sounds in its throat that you could say +it was laughing. + +"Tuts! you are the droll woman, Bell," said Mr Dyce, blinking at her. +"You have the daftest ideas of some things. For a woman who spent so +long a time in Miss Mushet's seminary and reads so much at the +newspapers, I wonder at you." + +"Of course his father was Scotch, that's one mercy," added Bell, not a +bit annoyed at the reception of her pious opinions. + +"That is always something to be going on with," said Mr Dyce mockingly. +"I hope he'll make the most of that great start in life and fortune. +It's as good as money in his pocket." + +Bell put up a tiny hand and pushed a stray curl (for she had a rebel +chevelure) behind her ear, and smiled in spite of her anxiety about the +coming nephew. "You may laugh if you like, Dan," she said emphatically, +perking with her head across the table at him; "but I'm _proud_, I'm +PROUD, I'm PROUD I'm Scotch." ("Not apologising for it myself," said her +brother softly.) "And you know what these Americans are! Useless +bodies, who make their men brush their own boots, and have to pay wages +that's a sin to housemaids, and eat pie even-on." + +"Dear me! is that true, or did you see it in a newspaper?" said her +brother. "I begin to be alarmed myself at the possibilities of this +small gentleman now on his way to the north, in the complete confidence +of Mr Molyneux, who must think him very clever. It's a land of infant +prodigies he comes from; even at the age of ten he may have more of the +stars and stripes in him than we can eradicate by a diet of porridge and +a curriculum of Shorter Catechism and Jane Porter's 'Scottish Chiefs.' +Faith, I was fond of Jane myself when I read her first: she was nice and +bloody. A big soft hat with a bash in it, perhaps; a rhetorical delivery +at the nose, 'I guess and calculate' every now and then; a habit of +chewing tobacco" ("We'll need a cuspidor," said Ailie _sotto voce_); "and +a revolver in his wee hip-pocket. Oh, the darling! I can see him quite +plainly." + +"Mercy on us!" cried the maid Kate, and fled the room all in a tremor at +the idea of the revolver. + +"You may say what you like, but I cannot get over his being an American," +said Bell solemnly. "The dollar's everything in America, and they're so +independent!" + +"Terrible! terrible!" said her brother ironically, breaking into another +egg fiercely with his knife, as if he were decapitating the President of +the United States. + +Ailie laughed again. "Dear, dear Bell!" she said, "it sounds quite +Scotch. A devotion to the dollar is a good sound basis for a Scotch +character. Remember there are about a hundred bawbees in a dollar: just +think of the dollar in bawbees, and you'll not be surprised that the +Americans prize it so much." + +"Renegade!" said Bell, shaking a spoon at her. + +"Provincial!" retorted Ailie, shaking a fork at Bell. + +"'Star of Peace, to wanderers weary, +Bright the beams that shine on me,' + +--children, be quiet," half-sung, half-said their brother. "Bell, you +are a blether; Ailie, you are a cosmopolitan, a thing accursed. That's +what Edinburgh and Brussels and your too brisk head have done for you. +Just bring yourself to our poor parochial point of view, and tell me, +both of you, what you propose to do with this young gentleman from +Chicago when you get him." + +"Change his stockings and give him a good tea," said Bell promptly, as if +she had been planning it for weeks. "He'll be starving of hunger and +damp with snow." + +"There's something more than dry hose and high tea to the making of a +man," said her brother. "You can't keep that up for a dozen years." + +"Oh, you mean education!" said Bell resignedly. "That's not in my +department at all." + +Ailie expressed her views with calm, soft deliberation, as if she, too, +had been thinking of nothing else for weeks, which was partly the case. +"I suppose," she said, "he'll go to the Grammar School, and get a good +grounding on the classic side, and then to the University. I will just +love to help him so long as he's at the Grammar School. That's what I +should have been, Dan, if you had let me--a teacher. I hope he's a +bright boy, for I simply cannot stand what Bell calls--calls--" + +"Diffies," suggested Bell. + +"Diffies; yes, I can _not_ stand diffies. Being half a Dyce I can hardly +think he will be a diffy. If he's the least like his father, he may be a +little wild at first, but at least he'll be good company, which makes up +for a lot, and good-hearted, quick in perception, fearless, and--" + +"And awful funny," suggested Bell, beaming with old, fond, glad +recollections of the brother dead beside his actor wife in far Chicago. + +"Fearless, and good fun," continued Ailie. "Oh, dear Will! what a merry +soul he was. Well, the child cannot be a fool if he's like his father. +American independence, though he has it in--in--in clods, won't do him +any harm at all. I love Americans--do you hear that, Bell Dyce?--because +they beat that stupid old King George, and have been brave in the forest +and wise on the prairie, and feared no face of king, and laughed at +dynasties. I love them because they gave me Emerson, and Whitman, and +Thoreau, and because one of them married my brother William, and was the +mother of his child." + +Dan Dyce nodded; he never quizzed his sister Ailie when it was her heart +that spoke and her eyes were sparkling. + +"The first thing you should learn him," said Miss Dyce, "is 'God save the +Queen.' It's a splendid song altogether; I'm glad I'm of a kingdom every +time I hear it at a meeting, for it's all that's left of the olden +notions the Dyces died young or lost their money for. You'll learn him +that, Ailie, or I'll be very vexed with you. I'll put flesh on his bones +with my cooking if you put the gentleman in him." + +It was Bell's idea that a gentleman talked a very fine English accent +like Ailie, and carried himself stately like Ailie, and had wise and +witty talk for rich or poor like Ailie. + +"I'm not so sure about the university," she went on. "Such stirks come +out of it sometimes; look at poor Maclean, the minister! They tell me he +could speak Hebrew if he got anybody to speak it back slow to him, but +just imagine the way he puts on his clothes! And his wife manages him +not so bad in broad Scotch. I think we could do nothing better than make +the boy a lawyer; it's a trade looked up to, and there's money in it, +though I never could see the need of law myself if folk would only be +agreeable. He could go into Dan's office whenever he is old enough." + +"A lawyer!" cried her brother. "You have first of all to see that he's +not an ass." + +"And what odds would that make to a lawyer?" said Bell quickly, snapping +her eyes at the brother she honestly thought the wisest man in Scotland. + +"Bell," said he, "as I said before, you're a haivering body--nothing +else, though I'll grant you bake no' a bad scone. And as for you, Ailie, +you're beginning, like most women, at the wrong end. The first thing to +do with your nephew is to teach him to be happy, for it's a habit that +has to be acquired early, like the liking for pease-brose." + +"You began gey early yourself," said Bell. "Mother used to say that she +was aye kittling your feet till you laughed when you were a baby. I +sometimes think that she did not stop it soon enough." + +"If I had to educate myself again, and had not a living to make, I would +leave out a good many things the old dominie thought needful. What was +yon awful thing again?--mensuration. To sleep well and eat anything, +fear the face of nobody in bashfulness, to like dancing, and be able to +sing a good bass or tenor,--that's no bad beginning in the art of life. +There's a fellow Brodie yonder in the kirk choir who seems to me happier +than a king when he's getting in a fine boom-boom of bass to the tune +Devizes; he puts me all out at my devotions on a Lord's day with envy of +his accomplishment." + +"What! envy too!" said Alison. "Murder, theft, and envy--what a +brother!" + +"Yes, envy too, the commonest and ugliest of our sins," said Mr Dyce. "I +never met man or woman who lacked it, though many never know they have +it. I hope the great thing is to be ashamed to feel it, for that's all +that I can boast of myself. When I was a boy at the school there was +another boy, a great friend of my own, was chosen to compete for a prize +I was thought incapable of taking, so that I was not on the list. I +envied him to hatred--almost; and saying my bits of prayers at night I +prayed that he might win. I felt ashamed of my envy, and set the better +Daniel Dyce to wrestle with the Daniel Dyce who was not quite so big. It +was a sair fight, I can assure you. I found the words of my prayer and +my wishes considerably at variance--" + +"Like me and 'Thy will be done' when we got the word of brother William," +said Bell. + +"But my friend--dash him!--got the prize. I suppose God took a kind of +vizzy down that night and saw the better Dan Dyce was doing his desperate +best against the other devil's-Dan, who mumbled the prayer on the chance +He would never notice. There was no other way of accounting for it, for +that confounded boy got the prize, and he was not half so clever as +myself, and that was Alick Maitland. Say nothing about envy, Ailie; I +fear we all have some of it until we are perhaps well up in years, and +understand that between the things we envy and the luck we have there is +not much to choose. If I got all I wanted, myself, the world would have +to be much enlarged. It does not matter a docken leaf. Well, as I was +saying when my learned friend interrupted me, I would have this young +fellow healthy and happy and interested in everything. There are men I +see who would mope and weary in the middle of a country fair--God help +them! I want to stick pins in them sometimes and make them jump. They +take as little interest in life as if they were undertakers." + +"Hoots! nobody could weary in this place at any rate," said Bell briskly. +"Look at the life and gaiety that's in it. Talk about London! I can +hardly get my sleep at night quite often with the traffic. And such +things are always happening in it--births and marriages, engagements and +tea-parties, new patterns at Miss Minto's, two coaches in the day, and +sometimes somebody doing something silly that will keep you laughing half +the week." + +"But it's not quite so lively as Chicago," said Mr Dyce. "There has not +been a man shot in this neighbourhood since the tinker kind of killed his +wife (as the fiscal says) with the pistol. You'll have heard of him? +When the man was being brought on the scaffold for it, and the minister +asked if he had anything to say before he suffered the extreme penalty of +the law, 'All I have got to say,' he answered, starting to greet, 'is +that this'll be an awful lesson to me.'" + +"That's one of your old ones," said Bell; but even an old one was welcome +in Dyce's house on New Year's day, and the three of them laughed at the +story as if it had newly come from London in Ailie's precious 'Punch.' +The dog fell into a convulsion of merriment, as if inward chuckles +tormented him--as queer a dog as ever was, neither Scotch terrier nor +Skye, Dandy Dinmont nor Dachshund, but just dog,--dark wire-haired +behind, short ruddy-haired in front, a stump tail, a face so fringed you +could only see its eyes when the wind blew. Mr Dyce put down his hand +and scratched it behind the ear. "Don't laugh, Footles," he said. "I +would not laugh if I were you, Footles,--it's just an old one. Many a +time you've heard it before, sly rogue. One would think you wanted to +borrow money." If you could hear Dan Dyce speak to his dog, you would +know at once he was a bachelor: only bachelors and bairnless men know +dogs. + +"I hope and trust he'll have decent clothes to wear, and none of their +American rubbish," broke in Bell, back to her nephew again. "It's all +nonsense about the bashed hat; but you can never tell what way an +American play-actor will dress a bairn: there's sure to be something +daft-like about him--a starry waistcoat or a pair of spats,--and we must +make him respectable like other boys in the place." + +"I would say Norfolk suits, the same as the banker's boys," suggested +Ailie. "I think the banker's boys always look so smart and neat." + +"Anything with plenty of pockets in it," said Mr Dyce. "At the age of +ten a boy would prefer his clothes to be all pockets. By George! an +entire suit of pockets, with a new penny in every pocket for luck, would +be a great treat,"--and he chuckled at the idea, making a mental note of +it for a future occasion. + +"Stuff and nonsense!" cried Bell emphatically, for here she was in her +own department. "The boy is going to be a Scotch boy. I'll have the +kilt on him, or nothing." + +"The kilt!" said Mr Dyce. + +"The kilt!" cried Ailie. + +Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat! + +It was a loud knocking at the front door. They stopped the talk to +listen, and they heard the maid go along the lobby from the kitchen. +When she opened the door, there came in the cheerful discord of the +street, the sound of a pounding drum, the fifes still busy, the +orange-hawker's cry, but over all they heard her put her usual +interrogation to visitors, no matter what their state or elegance. + +"Well, what is't?" she asked, and though they could not see her, they +knew she would have the door just a trifle open, with her shoulder +against it, as if she was there to repel some chieftain of a wild +invading clan. Then they heard her cry, "Mercy on me!" and her footsteps +hurrying to the parlour door. She threw it open, and stood with some one +behind her. + +"What do you think? Here's brother William's wean!" she exclaimed in a +gasp. + +"My God! Where is he?" cried Bell, the first to find her tongue. "He's +no hurt, is he?" + +"_It's no' a him at all--it's a her_!" shrieked Kate, throwing up her +arms in consternation, and stepping aside she gave admission to a little +girl. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +THE orphan child of William and Mary Dyce, dead, the pair of them, in the +far-off city of Chicago, stepped quite serenely into an astounded +company. There were three Dyces in a row in front of her, and the droll +dog Footles at her feet, and behind her, Kate, the servant, wringing her +apron as if it had newly come from the washing-boyne, her bosom heaving. +Ten eyes (if you could count the dog's, hidden by his tousy fringe) +stared at the child a moment, and any ordinary child would have been much +put out; but this was no common child, or else she felt at once the fond +kind air of home. I will give you her picture in a sentence or two. She +was black-haired, dark and quick in the eye, not quite pale but olive in +complexion, with a chin she held well up, and a countenance neither shy +nor bold, but self-possessed. Fur on her neck and hood (Jim Molyneux's +last gift), and a muff that held her arms up to the elbows, gave her an +aspect of picture-book cosiness that put the maid in mind at once of the +butcher's Christmas calendar. + +It was the dog that first got over the astonishment: he made a dive at +her with little friendly growls, and rolled on his back at her feet, to +paddle with his four paws in the air, which was his way of showing he was +in the key for fun. + +With a cry of glee she threw the muff on the floor and plumped beside +him, put her arms about his body and buried her face in his fringe. His +tail went waving, joyous, like a banner. "Doggie, doggie, you love me," +said she in an accent that was anything but American. "Let us pause and +consider,--you will not leave this house till I boil you an egg." + +"God bless me, what child's this?" cried Bell, coming to herself with a +start, and, pouncing on her, she lifted her to her feet. Ailie sank on +her hands and knees and stared in the visitor's face. "The kilt, +indeed!" said Mr Dyce to himself. "This must be a warlock wean, for if +it has not got the voice and sentiment of Wanton Wully Oliver I'm losing +my wits." + +"Tell me this, quick, are you Lennox Dyce?" said Bell all trembling, +devouring the little one with her eyes. + +"Well, I just guess I am," replied the child calmly, with the dog licking +her chin. "Say, are you Auntie Bell?" and this time there was no doubt +about the American accent. Up went her mouth to them to be kissed, +composedly: they lost no time, but fell upon her, Ailie half in tears +because at once she saw below the childish hood so much of brother +William. + +"Lennox, dear, you should not speak like that; who in all the world +taught you to speak like that?" said Bell, unwrapping her. + +"Why, I thought that was all right here," said the stranger. "That's the +way the bell-man speaks." + +"Bless me! Do you know the bell-man?" cried Miss Dyce. + +"I rang his old bell for him this morning--didn't you hear me?" was the +surprising answer. "He's a nice man; he liked me. I'd like him too if +he wasn't so tired. He was too tired to speak sense; all he would say +was, 'I've lost the place; let us pause and consider,' and 'Try another +egg.' I said I would give him a quarter if he'd let me ring his bell, +and he said he'd let me do it for nothing, and my breakfast besides. +'You'll not leave this house till I boil an egg for you'--that's what he +said, and the poor man was so tired and his legs were dreff'le poorly!" +Again her voice was the voice of Wully Oliver; the sentiment, as the +Dyces knew, was the slogan of his convivial hospitality. + +"The kilt, indeed!" said Mr Dyce, feeling extraordinarily foolish, and, +walking past them, he went upstairs and hurriedly put the pea-sling in +his pocket. + +When he came down, Young America was indifferently pecking at her second +breakfast with Footles on her knee, an aunt on either side of her, and +the maid Kate with a tray in her hand for excuse, open-mouthed, half in +at the door. + +"Well, as I was saying, Jim--that's my dear Mr Molyneux, you know--got +busy with a lot of the boys once he landed off that old ship, and so he +said, 'Bud, this is the--the--justly cel'brated Great Britain; I know by +the boys; they're so lonely when they're by themselves; I was 'prehensive +we might have missed it in the dark, but it's all right.' And next day +he bought me this muff and things and put me on the cars--say, what funny +cars you have!--and said 'Good-bye, Bud; just go right up to Maryfield, +and change there. If you're lost anywhere on the island just holler out +good and loud, and I'll hear!' He pretended he wasn't caring, but he was +pretty blinky 'bout the eyes, and I saw he wasn't anyway gay, so I never +let on the way I felt myself." + +She suggested the tone and manner of the absent Molyneux in a fashion to +put him in the flesh before them. Kate almost laughed loud out at the +oddity of it; Ailie and her brother were astounded at the cleverness of +the mimicry; Bell clenched her hands, and said for the second time that +day, "Oh! that Molyneux, if I had him!" + +"He's a nice man, Jim. I can't tell you how I love him--and he gave me +heaps of candy at the depot," proceeded the unabashed new-comer. +"'Change at Edinburgh,' he said; 'you'll maybe have time to run into the +Castle and see the Duke; give him my love, but not my address. When you +get to Maryfield hop out slick and ask for your uncle Dyce.' And then he +said, did Jim, 'I hope he ain't a loaded Dyce, seein' he's Scotch, and +it's the festive season.'" + +"The adorable Jim!" said Ailie. "We might have known." + +"I got on all right," proceeded the child, "but I didn't see the Duke of +Edinburgh; there wasn't time, and uncle wasn't at Maryfield, but a man +put me on his mail carriage and drove me right here. He said I was a +caution. My! it was cold. Say, is it always weather like this here?" + +"Sometimes it's like this, and sometimes it's just ordinary Scotch +weather," said Mr Dyce, twinkling at her through his spectacles. + +"I was dreff'le sleepy in the mail, and the driver wrapped me up, and +when I came into this town in the dark he said, 'Walk right down there +and rap at the first door you see with a brass man's hand for a knocker; +that's Mr Dyce's house.' I came down, and there wasn't any brass man, +but I saw the knocker. I couldn't reach up to it, so when I saw a man +going into the church with a lantern in his hand, I went up to him and +pulled his coat. I knew he'd be all right going into a church. He told +me he was going to ring the bell, and I said I'd give him a quarter--oh, +I said that before. When the bell was finished he took me to his house +for luck--that was what he said--and he and his wife got right up and +boiled eggs. They said I was a caution, too, and they went on boiling +eggs, and I couldn't eat more than two and a white though I tried _and_ +tried. I think I slept a good while in their house; I was so fatigued, +and they were all right; they loved me, I could see that. And I liked +them some myself, though they must be mighty poor, for they haven't any +children. Then the bell-man took me to this house, and rapped at the +door, and went away pretty quick for him before anybody came to it, +because he said he was plain-soled--what's plain-soled anyhow?--and +wasn't a lucky first-foot on a New Year's morning." + +"It beats all, that's what it does!" cried Bell. "My poor wee +whitterick! Were ye no' frightened on the sea?" + +"Whitterick, whitterick," repeated the child to herself, and Ailie, +noticing, was glad that this was certainly not a diffy. Diffies never +interest themselves in new words; diffies never go inside themselves with +a new fact as a dog goes under a table with a bone. + +"Were you not frightened when you were on the sea?" repeated Bell. + +"No," said the child promptly. "Jim was there all right, you see, and he +knew all about it. He said, 'Trust in Providence, and if it's _very_ +stormy, trust in Providence and the Scotch captain.'" + +"I declare! the creature must have some kind of sense in him, too," said +Bell, a little mollified by this compliment to Scotch sea-captains. And +all the Dyces fed their eyes upon this wonderful wean that had fallen +among them. 'Twas happy in that hour with them; as if in a miracle they +had been remitted to their own young years; their dwelling was at long +last furnished! She had got into the good graces of Footles as if she +had known him all her life. + +"Say, uncle, this is a funny dog," was her next remark. "Did God make +him?" + +"Well--yes, I suppose God did," said Mr Dyce, taken a bit aback. + +"Well, isn't He the darndest! This dog beats Mrs Molyneux's Dodo, and +Dodo was a looloo. What sort of a dog is he? Scotch terrier?" + +"Mostly not," said her uncle, chuckling. "It's really an improvement on +the Scotch terrier. There's later patents in him, you might say. He's a +sort of mosaic; indeed, when I think of it you might describe him as a +pure mosaic dog." + +"A Mosaic dog!" exclaimed Lennox. "Then he must have come from +scriptural parts. Perhaps I'll get playing with him Sundays. Not +playing loud out, you know, but just being happy. I love being happy, +don't you?" + +"It's my only weakness," said Mr Dyce emphatically, blinking through his +glasses. "The other business men in the town don't approve of me for it; +they call it frivolity. But it comes so easily to me I never charge it +in the bills, though a sense of humour should certainly be worth 12s. 6d. +a smile in the Table of Fees. It would save many a costly plea." + +"Didn't you play on Sunday in Chicago?" asked Ailie. + +"Not out loud. Poppa said he was bound to have me Scotch in one thing at +least, even if it took a strap. That was after mother died. He'd just +read to me Sundays, and we went to church till we had pins and needles. +We had the Reverend Ebenezer Paul Frazer, M.A., Presbyterian Church on +the Front. He just preached and preached till we had pins and needles +all over." + +"My poor Lennox!" exclaimed Ailie, with feeling. + +"Oh, I'm all right!" said young America blithely. "I'm not kicking." + +Dan Dyce, with his head to the side, took off his spectacles and rubbed +them clean with his handkerchief; put them on again, looked at his niece +through them, and then at Ailie, with some emotion struggling in his +countenance. Ailie for a moment suppressed some inward convulsion, and +turned her gaze, embarrassed from him to Bell, and Bell catching the eyes +of both of them could contain her joy no longer. They laughed till the +tears came, and none more heartily than brother William's child. She had +so sweet a laugh that there and then the Dyces thought it the loveliest +sound they had ever heard in their house. Her aunts would have devoured +her with caresses. Her uncle stood over her and beamed, rubbing his +hands, expectant every moment of another manifestation of the oddest kind +of child mind he had ever encountered. And Kate swept out and in between +the parlour and the kitchen on trivial excuses, generally with something +to eat for the child, who had eaten so much in the house of Wanton Wully +Oliver that she was indifferent to the rarest delicacies of Bell's +celestial grocery. + +"You're just--just a wee witch!" said Bell, fondling the child's hair. +"Do you know, that man Molyneux--" + +"Jim," suggested Lennox. + +"I would Jim him if I had him! That man Molyneux in all his scrimping +little letters never said whether you were a boy or a girl, and we +thought a Lennox was bound to be a boy, and all this time we have been +expecting a boy." + +"I declare!" said the little one, with the most amusing drawl, a memory +of Molyneux. "Why, I always was a girl, far back as I can remember. +Nobody never gave me the chance to be a boy. I s'pose I hadn't the +clothes for the part, and they just pushed me along anyhow in frocks. +Would you'd rather I was a boy?" + +"Not a bit! We have one in the house already, and he's a fair +heart-break," said her aunt, with a look towards Mr Dyce. "We had just +made up our minds to dress you in the kilt when your rap came to the +door. At least, I had made up my mind; the others are so thrawn! And +bless me! lassie, where's your luggage? You surely did not come all the +way from Chicago with no more than what you have on your back?" + +"You'll be tickled to death to see my trunks!" said Lennox. "I've heaps +and heaps of clothes and six dolls. They're all coming with the coach. +They wanted me to wait for the coach too, but the mail man who called me +a caution said he was bound to have a passenger for luck on New Year's +day, and I was in a hurry to get home anyway." + +"Home!" When she said that, the two aunts swept on her like a billow and +bore her, dog and all, upstairs to her room. She was almost blind for +want of sleep. They hovered over her quick-fingered, airy as bees, +stripping her for bed. She knelt a moment and in one breath said-- + +"God--bless--father--and--mother--and--Jim--and--Mrs +Molyneux--and--my--aunts--in--Scotland--and--Uncle--Dan--and--everybody-- +good-night" + +And was asleep in the sunlight of the room as soon as her head fell on +the pillow. + +"She prayed for her father and mother," whispered Bell, with Footles in +her arms, as they stood beside the bed. "It's not--it's not quite +Presbyterian to pray for the dead; it's very American, indeed you might +call it papist." + +Ailie's face reddened, but she said nothing. + +"And do you know this?" said Bell shamefacedly, "I do it myself; upon my +word, I do it myself. I'm often praying for father and mother and +William." + +"So am I," confessed Alison, plainly relieved. "I'm afraid I'm a poor +Presbyterian, for I never knew there was anything wrong in doing so." + +Below, in the parlour, Mr Dyce stood looking into the white garden, a +contented man, humming-- + + "Star of Peace, to wanderers weary." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +SHE was a lucky lassie, this of ours, to have come home to her father's +Scotland on that New Year's day, for there is no denying that it is not +always gay in Scotland, contrairy land, that, whether we be deep down in +the waist of the world and afar from her, or lying on her breast, chains +us to her with links of iron and gold,--stern tasks and happy days +remembered, ancient stories, austerity and freedom, cold weather on moor +and glen, warm hearths and burning hearts. She might have seen this +burgh first in its solemnity, on one of the winter days when it shivers +and weeps among its old memorials, and the wild geese cry more constant +over the house-tops, and the sodden gardens, lanes, wynds, and wells, the +clanging spirits of old citizens dead and gone, haunting the place of +their follies and their good times, their ridiculous ideals, their +mistaken ambitions, their broken plans. Ah, wild geese! wild geese! old +ghosts that cry to-night above my dwelling, I feel--I feel and know! She +might have come, the child, to days of fast, and sombre dark drugget +garments, dissonant harsh competing kettle bells, or spoiled harvests, +poor fishings, hungry hours. It was good for her, and it is the making +of my story, that she came not then, but with the pure white cheerful +snow, to ring the burgh bell in her childish escapade, and usher in with +merriment the New Year, and begin her new life happily in the old world. + +She woke at noon among the scented curtains, in linen sea-breeze +bleached, under the camceil roof that all children love, for it makes a +garret like the ancestral cave, and in rainy weather they can hear the +pattering feet of foes above them. She heard the sound of John Taggart's +drum, and the fifing of "Happy we've been a' thegether," and turning, +found upon her pillow a sleeping doll that woke whenever she raised it +up, and stared at her in wonderment. + +"Oh!--Oh!--Oh! you roly-poley blonde!" cried the child in ecstasy, +hugging it to her bosom and covering it with kisses. "I'm as glad as +anything. Do you see the lovely little room? I'll tell you right here +what your name is: it's Alison; no, it's Bell; no, it's Alibel for your +two just lovely, lovely aunties." + +Up she rose, sleep banished, with a sense of cheerfulness and +expectation, nimbly dressed herself, and slid down the banisters to +tumble plump at the feet of her Auntie Bell in the lobby. + +"Mercy on us! You'll break your neck; are you hurt?" cried Aunt Bell. +"I'm not kicking," said the child, and the dog waved furiously a gladsome +tail. A log fire blazed and crackled and hissed in the parlour, and Mr +Dyce tapped time with his fingers on a chair-back to an internal hymn. + +"My! ain't I the naughty girl to be snoozling away like a gopher in a +hole all day? Your clock's stopped, Uncle Dan." + +Mr Dyce looked very guilty, and coughed, rubbing his chin. "You're a +noticing creature," said he. "I declare it _has_ stopped. Well, well!" +and his sister Bell plainly enjoyed some amusing secret. + +"Your uncle is always a little daft, my dear," she said. + +"I would rather be daft than dismal," he retorted, cleaning his glasses. + +"It's a singular thing that the clocks in our lobby and parlour always +stop on the New Year's day, Lennox." + +"Bud; please, say Bud," pleaded the little one. "Nobody ever calls me +Lennox 'cept when I'm doing something wrong and almost going to get a +whipping." + +"Very well, Bud, then. This clock gets something wrong with it every New +Year's day, for your uncle, that man there, wants the folk who call never +to know the time so that they'll bide the longer." + +"Tuts!" said Uncle Dan, who had thought this was his own particular +recipe for joviality, and that they had never discovered it. + +"You have come to a hospitable town, Bud," said Ailie. "There are +convivial old gentlemen on the other side of the street who have got up a +petition to the magistrates to shut up the inn and the public-house in +the afternoon. They say it is in the interests of temperance, but it's +really to compel their convivial friends to visit themselves." + +"I signed it myself," confessed Mr Dyce, "and I'm only half convivial. +I'm not bragging; I might have been more convivial if it didn't so easily +give me a sore head. What's more cheerful than a crowd in the house and +the clash going? A fine fire, a good light, and turn about at a story! +The happiest time I ever had in my life was when I broke my leg; so many +folk called, it was like a month of New Year's days. I was born with a +craving for company. Mother used to have a superstition that if a knife +or spoon dropped on the floor from the table it betokened a visitor, and +I used to drop them by the dozen. But, dear me! here's a wean with a +doll, and where in the world did she get it?" + +Bud, with the doll under one arm and the dog tucked under the other, +laughed up in his face with shy perception. + +"Oh, you funny man!" she exclaimed. "I guess you know all right who put +Alibel on my pillow. Why! I could have told you were a doll man: I +noticed you turning over the pennies in your pants' pocket, same as poppa +used when he saw any nice clean little girl like me, and he was the +dolliest man in all Chicago. Why, there was treasury days when he just +rained dolls." + +"That was William, sure enough," said Mr Dyce. "There's no need for +showing us your strawberry mark. It was certainly William. If it had +only been dolls!" + +"Her name's Alibel, for her two aunties," said the child. + +"Tuts!" said Mr Dyce. "If I had thought you meant to honour them that +way I would have made her twins. But you see I did not know; it was a +delicate transaction as it was. I could not tell very well whether a +doll or a--a--or a fountain pen would be the most appropriate present for +a ten-year-old niece from Chicago, and I risked the doll. I hope it +fits." + +"Like a halo. It's just sweet!" said the ecstatic maiden, and rescued +one of its limbs from the gorge of Footles. + +It got about the town that to Dyces' house had come a wonderful American +child who talked language like a minister: the news was partly the news +of the mail-driver and Wully Oliver, but mostly the news of Kate, who, +from the moment Lennox had been taken from her presence and put to bed, +had dwelt upon the window-sashes, letting no one pass that side of the +street without her confidence. + +"You never heard the like! No' the size of a shillin's worth of +ha'pennies, and she came all the way by her lee-lone in the coach from +Chickagoo,--that's in America. There's to be throng times in this house +now, I'm tellin' you, with brother William's wean." + +As the forenoon advanced Kate's intelligence grew more surprising: to the +new-comer were ascribed a score of characteristics such as had never been +seen in the town before. For one thing (would Kate assure them), she +could imitate Wully Oliver till you almost saw whiskers on her and could +smell the dram. She was thought to be a boy to start with, but that was +only their ignorance in Chickagoo, for the girl was really a lassie, and +had kists of lassie's clothes coming with the coach. + +The Dyces' foreigner was such a grand sensation that it marred the +splendour of the afternoon band parade, though John Taggart was unusually +glorious, walking on the very backs of his heels, his nose in the +heavens, and his drumsticks soaring and circling over his head in a way +to make the spectators giddy. Instead of following the band till its +_repertoire_ was suddenly done at five minutes to twelve at the door of +Maggie White, the wine and spirit merchant, there were many that hung +about the street in the hope of seeing the American. They thought they +would know her at once by the colour of her skin, which some said would +be yellow, and others maintained would be brown. A few less patient and +more privileged boldly visited the house of Dyce to make their New Year +compliments and see the wonder for themselves. + +The American had her eye on them. + +She had her eye on the Sheriff's lady, who was so determinedly affable, +so pleased with everything the family of Dyce might say, do, or possess, +and only five times ventured to indicate there were others, by a mention +of "the dear Lady Anne--so nice, so simple, so unaffected, so amiable." + +On Miss Minto of the crimson cloak, who kept her deaf ear to the sisters +and her good one to their brother, and laughed heartily at all his little +jokes even before they were half made, or looked at him with large, soft, +melting eyes and her lips apart, which her glass had told her was an +aspect ravishing. The sisters smiled at each other when she had gone and +looked comically at Dan, but he, poor man, saw nothing but just that Mary +Minto was a good deal fatter than she used to be. + +On the doctor's two sisters, late come from a farm in the country, +marvellously at ease so long as the conversation abode in gossip about +the neighbours, but in a silent terror when it rose from persons to +ideas, as it once had done when Lady Anne had asked them what they +thought of didactic poetry, and one of them said it was a thing she was +very fond of, and then fell in a swound. + +On the banker man, the teller, who was in hopeless love with Ailie, as +was plain from the way he devoted himself to Bell. + +On Mr Dyce's old retired partner, Mr Cleland, who smelt of cloves and did +not care for tea. + +On P. & A. MacGlashan, who had come in specially to see if the stranger +knew his brother Albert, who, he said, was "in a Somewhere-ville in +Manitoba." + +On the Provost and his lady, who were very old, and petted each other +when they thought themselves unobserved. + +On the soft, kind, simple, content and happy ladies lately married. + +On the others who would like to be. + +Yes, Bud had her eye on them all. They never guessed how much they +entertained her as they genteelly sipped their tea, or wine, or ginger +cordial,--the women of them,--or coughed a little too artificially over +the New Year glass,--the men. + +"Wee Pawkie, that's what she is--just Wee Pawkie!" said the Provost when +he got out, and so far it summed up everything. + +The ladies could not tear away home fast enough to see if they had not a +remnant of cloth that could be made into such a lovely dress as that of +Dyce's niece for one of their own children. "Mark my words!" they said +--"that child will be ruined between them. She's her father's image, and +he went and married a poor play-actress, and stayed a dozen years away +from Scotland, and never wrote home a line." + +So many people came to the house, plainly for no reason but to see the +new-comer, that Ailie at last made up her mind to satisfy all by taking +her out for a walk. The strange thing was that in the street the +populace displayed indifference or blindness. Bud might have seen no +more sign of interest in her than the hurried glance of a passer-by; no +step slowed to show that the most was being made of the opportunity. +There had been some women at their windows when she came out of the house +sturdily walking by Aunt Ailie's side, with her hands in her muff, and +her keen black eyes peeping from under the fur of her hood; but these +women drew in their heads immediately. Ailie, who knew her native town, +was conscious that from behind the curtains the scrutiny was keen. She +smiled to herself as she walked demurely down the street. + +"Do you feel anything, Bud?" she asked. + +Bud naturally failed to comprehend. + +"You ought to feel something at your back; I'm ticklish all down the back +because of a hundred eyes." + +"I know," said the astounding child. "They think we don't notice, but I +guess God sees them," and yet she had apparently never glanced at the +windows herself, nor looked round to discover passers-by staring over +their shoulders at her aunt and her. + +For a moment Ailie felt afraid. She dearly loved a quick perception, but +it was a gift, she felt, a niece might have too young. + +"How in the world did you know that, Bud?" she asked. + +"I just guessed they'd be doing it," said Bud, "'cause it's what I would +do if I saw a little girl from Scotland walking down the lake front in +Chicago. Is it dre'ffle rude, Aunt Ailie?" + +"So they say, so they say," said her aunt, looking straight forward, with +her shoulders back and her eyes level, flushing at the temples. "But I'm +afraid we can't help it. It's undignified--to be seen doing it. I can +see you're a real Dyce, Bud. The other people who are not Dyces lose a +great deal of fun. Do you know, child, I think you and I are going to be +great friends--you and I and Aunt Bell and Uncle Dan." + +"And the Mosaic dog," added Bud with warmth. "I love that old dog so +much that I could--I could eat him. He's the becomingest dog! Why, here +he is!" And it was indeed Footles who hurled himself at them, a +rapturous mass of unkempt hair and convulsive barkings, having escaped +from the imprisonment of Kate's kitchen by climbing over her shoulders +and out across the window-sash. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +"I HEARD all about you and Auntie Bell and Uncle Dan from pop--from +father," said Bud, as they walked back to the house. She had learned +already from example how sweeter sounded "father" than the term she had +used in America. "He was mighty apt to sit up nights talking about you +all. But I don't quite place Kate: he never mentioned Kate." + +"Oh, she's a new addition," explained Ailie. "Kate is the maid, you +know: she came to us long after your father left home, but she's been +with us five years now, and that's long enough to make her one of the +family." + +"My! Five years! She ain't--she isn't much of a quitter, is she? I +guess you must have tacked her down," said Bud. "You don't get helps in +Chicago to linger round the dear old spot like that; they get all hot +running from base to base, same as if it was a game of ball. But she's a +pretty--pretty broad girl, isn't she? She couldn't run very fast; +that'll be the way she stays." + +Ailie smiled. "Ah! So that's Chicago, too, is it? You must have been +in the parlour a good many times at five-o'clock tea to have grasped the +situation at your age. I suppose your Chicago ladies lower the +temperature of their tea weeping into it the woes they have about their +domestics? It's another Anglo-Saxon link." + +"Mrs Jim said sensible girls that would stay long enough to cool down +after the last dash were getting that scarce you had to go out after them +with a gun. You didn't really, you know; that was just Mrs Jim's way of +putting it." + +"I understand," said Alison, unable to hide her amusement. "You seem to +have picked up that way of putting it yourself." + +"Am I speaking slang?" asked the child, glancing up quickly and +reddening. "Father pro--prosisted I wasn't to speak slang nor chew gum; +he said it was things no real lady would do in the old country, and that +I was to be a well-off English undefied. You must be dre'ffle shocked, +Auntie Ailie?" + +"Oh no," said Ailie cheerfully; "I never was shocked in all my life, +though they say I'm a shocker myself. I'm only surprised a little at the +possibilities of the English language. I've hardly heard you use a word +of slang yet, and still you scarcely speak a sentence in which there's +not some novelty. It's like Kate's first attempt at sheep's-head broth: +we were familiar with all the ingredients except the horns, and we knew +them elsewhere." + +"That's all right, then," said Bud, relieved. "But Mrs Jim had funny +ways of putting things, and I s'pose I picked them up. I can't help +it--I pick up so fast. Why, I had scarletina twice! and I picked up her +way of zaggerating: often I zaggerate dre'ffle, and say I wrote all the +works of Shakespeare, when I really didn't, you know. Mrs Jim didn't +mean that she had to go out hunting for helps with a gun; all she meant +was that they were getting harder and harder to get, and mighty hard to +keep when you got them." + + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DAFT DAYS*** + + +******* This file should be named 49906.txt or 49906.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/9/9/0/49906 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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