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diff --git a/5420.txt b/5420.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dc81cdd --- /dev/null +++ b/5420.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1045 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rab and His Friends, by John Brown + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Rab and His Friends + +Author: John Brown + + +Release Date: April, 2004 [EBook #5420] +This file was first posted on July 14, 2002 +Last Updated: July 3, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RAB AND HIS FRIENDS *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + + + +RAB AND HIS FRIENDS + +By John Brown, M.D. + +With Illustrations By Hermann Simon and Edmund H. Garrett. + +Philadelphia: + +1890. + + + + +PREFACE. + +Four years ago, my uncle, the Rev. Dr. Smith of Biggar, asked me to give +a lecture in my native village, the shrewd little capital of the Upper +Ward. I never lectured before; I have no turn for it; but Avunculus +was urgent, and I had an odd sort of desire to say something to these +strong-brained, primitive people of my youth, who were boys and girls +when I left them. I could think of nothing to give them. At last I +said to myself, "I'll tell them Ailie's story." I had often told it +to myself; indeed, it came on me at intervals almost painfully, as if +demanding to be told, as if I heard Rab whining at the door to get in or +out,-- + + "Whispering how meek and gentle he could be,"-- + +or as if James was entreating me on his death-bed to tell all the world +what his Ailie was. But it was easier said than done. I tried it over +and over, in vain. At last, after a happy dinner at Hanley--why are the +dinners always happy at Hanley?--and a drive home alone through + + "The gleam, the shadow, and the peace supreme" + +of a midsummer night, I sat down about twelve and rose at four, having +finished it. I slunk off to bed, satisfied and cold. I don't think +I made almost any changes in it. I read it to the Biggar folk in the +school-house, very frightened, and felt I was reading it ill, and their +honest faces intimated as much in their affectionate puzzled looks. I +gave it on my return home to some friends, who liked the story; and the +first idea was to print it, as now, with illustrations, on the principle +of Rogers's joke, "that it would be dished except for the plates." + +But I got afraid of the public, and paused. Meanwhile, some good friend +said Rab might be thrown in among the other idle hours, and so he was; +and it is a great pleasure to me to think how many new friends he got. + +I was at Biggar the other day, and some of the good folks told me, with +a grave smile peculiar to that region, that when Rab came to them in +print he was so good that they wouldn't believe he was the same Rab I +had delivered in the school-room,--a testimony to my vocal powers of +impressing the multitude somewhat conclusive. + +I need not add that this little story is, in all essentials, true, +though, if I were Shakespeare, it might be curious to point out where +Phantasy tried her hand, sometimes where least suspected. + +It has been objected to it as a work of art that there is too much pain; +and many have said to me, with some bitterness, "Why did you make me +suffer so?" But I think of my father's answer when I told him this: "And +why shouldn't they suffer? SHE suffered; it will do them good; for pity, +genuine pity, is, as old Aristotle says, 'of power to purge the mind.'" +And though in all works of art there should be a plus of delectation, +the ultimate overcoming of evil and sorrow by good and joy,--the end of +all art being pleasure,--whatsoever things are lovely first, and things +that are true and of good report afterwards in their turn,--still there +is a pleasure, one of the strangest and strongest in our nature, in +imaginative suffering with and for others,-- + + "In the soothing thoughts that spring + Out of human suffering;" + +for sympathy is worth nothing, is, indeed, not itself, unless it has in +it somewhat of personal pain. It is the hereafter that gives to + + "the touch of a vanished hand, + And the sound of a voice that is still," + +its own infinite meaning. Our hearts and our understandings follow Ailie +and her "ain man" into that world where there is no pain, where no one +says, "I am sick." What is all the philosophy of Cicero, the wailing of +Catullus, and the gloomy playfulness of Horace's variations on "Let +us eat and drink," with its terrific "for," to the simple faith of the +carrier and his wife in "I am the resurrection and the Life"? + +I think I can hear from across the fields of sleep and other years +Ailie's sweet, dim, wandering voice trying to say,-- + +Our bonnie bairn's there, John, She was baith gude and fair, John, And +we grudged her sair, John, To the land o' the leal. + +But sorrow's sel' wears past, John, The joys are comin' fast, John, The +joys that aye shall last, John, In the land o' the leal. + +EDINBURGH, 1861. + + [Illustration: a cherub] + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. + +Portrait, Dr. John Brown . . . . . . . Frontispiece. + +Rab . . . . . . . . Hermann Simon + +"He is muzzled!". . . . . Hermann Simon + +"He lifted down Ailie his wife" . . . Edmund H. Garrett + +"One look at her quiets the students" . . Edmund H. Garrett + +"Rab looked perplexed and dangerous" . . Hermann Simon + +"--And passed away so gently" . . Edmund H. Garrett + +"Down the hill through Auchindinny woods" Edmund H. Garrett + +Rab and Jess . . . . . . Hermann Simon + + + + + +RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. + +Four-and-thirty years ago, Bob Ainslie and I were coming up Infirmary +Street from the High School, our heads together, and our arms +intertwisted, as only lovers and boys know how, or why. + +When we got to the top of the street, and turned north, we espied a +crowd at the Tron Church. "A dog-fight!" shouted Bob, and was off; and +so was I, both of us all but praying that it might not be over before we +got up! And is not this boy-nature? and human nature too? and don't +we all wish a house on fire not to be out before we see it? Dogs like +fighting; old Isaac says they "delight" in it, and for the best of all +reasons; and boys are not cruel because they like to see the fight. +They see three of the great cardinal virtues of dog or man--courage, +endurance, and skill--in intense action. This is very different from +a love of making dogs fight, and enjoying, and aggravating, and making +gain by their pluck. A boy,--be he ever so fond himself of fighting,--if +he be a good boy, hates and despises all this, but he would have run off +with Bob and me fast enough: it is a natural, and a not wicked interest, +that all boys and men have in witnessing intense energy in action. + +Does any curious and finely-ignorant woman wish to know how Bob's eye at +a glance announced a dog-fight to his brain? He did not, he could +not, see the dogs fighting: it was a flash of an inference, a rapid +induction. The crowd round a couple of dogs fighting is a crowd +masculine mainly, with an occasional active, compassionate woman +fluttering wildly round the outside and using her tongue and her +hands freely upon the men, as so many "brutes;" it is a crowd annular, +compact, and mobile; a crowd centripetal, having its eyes and its heads +all bent downwards and inwards, to one common focus. + +Well, Bob and I are up, and find it is not over: a small thoroughbred +white bull terrier is busy throttling a large shepherd's dog, +unaccustomed to war, but not to be trifled with. They are hard at it; +the scientific little fellow doing his work in great style, his pastoral +enemy fighting wildly, but with the sharpest of teeth and a great +courage. Science and breeding, however, soon had their own; the Game +Chicken, as the premature Bob called him, working his way up, took his +final grip of poor Yarrow's throat,--and he lay gasping and done for. +His master, a brown, handsome, big young shepherd from Tweedsmuir, would +have liked to have knocked down any man, would "drink up Esil, or eat a +crocodile," for that part, if he had a chance: it was no use kicking +the little dog; that would only make him hold the closer. Many were the +means shouted out in mouthfuls, of the best possible ways of ending it. +"Water!" but there was none near, and many cried for it who might have +got it from the well at Blackfriar's Wynd. "Bite the tail!" and a large, +vague, benevolent, middle-aged man, more desirous than wise, with some +struggle got the bushy end of Yarrow's tail into his ample mouth, +and bit it with all his might. This was more than enough for the +much-enduring, much-perspiring shepherd, who, with a gleam of joy over +his broad visage, delivered a terrific facer upon our large, vague, +benevolent, middle-aged friend,--who went down like a shot. + +Still the Chicken holds; death not far off. "Snuff! a pinch of snuff!" +observed a calm, highly-dressed young buck, with an eye-glass in his +eye. "Snuff, indeed!" growled the angry crowd, affronted and glaring. +"Snuff! a pinch of snuff!" again observes the buck, but with more +urgency; whereon were produced several open boxes, and from a mull which +may have been at Culloden he took a pinch, knelt down, and presented +it to the nose of the Chicken. The laws of physiology and of snuff take +their course; the Chicken sneezes, and Yarrow is free! + +The young pastoral giant stalks off with Yarrow in his arms, comforting +him. + +But the Bull Terrier's blood is up, and his soul unsatisfied; he grips +the first dog he meets, and discovering she is not a dog, in Homeric +phrase, he makes a brief sort of amende, and is off. The boys, with Bob +and me at their head, are after him: down Niddry Street he goes, bent on +mischief; up the Cowgate like an arrow,--Bob and I, and our small men, +panting behind. + +There, under the single arch of the South Bridge, is a huge mastiff, +sauntering down the middle of the causeway, as if with his hands in his +pockets: he is old, gray, brindled, as big as a little Highland bull, +and has the Shakespearian dewlaps shaking as he goes. + +The Chicken makes straight at him, and fastens on his throat. To our +astonishment the great creature does nothing but stand still, hold +himself up, and roar,--yes, roar; a long, serious, remonstrative roar. +How is this? Bob and I are up to them. HE IS MUZZLED! The bailies had +proclaimed a general muzzling, and his master, studying strength and +economy mainly, had encompassed his huge jaws in a home-made apparatus +constructed out of the leather of some ancient breechin. His mouth was +open as far as it could; his lips curled up in rage,--a sort of terrible +grin; his teeth gleaming, ready, from out the darkness; the strap across +his mouth tense as a bow-string; his whole frame stiff with indignation +and surprise; his roar asking us all around, "Did you ever see the like +of this?" He looked a statue of anger and astonishment done in Aberdeen +granite. + +We soon had a crowd: the Chicken held on. "A knife!" cried Bob; and +a cobbler gave him his knife: you know the kind of knife, worn away +obliquely to a point, and always keen. I put its edge to the tense +leather; it ran before it; and then!--one sudden jerk of that enormous +head, a sort of dirty mist about his mouth, no noise,--and the bright +and fierce little fellow is dropped, limp and dead. A solemn pause; this +was more than any of us had bargained for. I turned the little fellow +over, and saw he was quite dead; the mastiff had taken him by the small +of the back like a rat, and broken it. + +He looked down at his victim appeased, ashamed, and amazed, snuffed him +all over, stared at him, and, taking a sudden thought, turned round and +trotted off. Bob took the dead dog up, and said, "John, we'll bury him +after tea." "Yes," said I, and was off after the mastiff. He made up the +Cowgate at a rapid swing; he had forgotten some engagement. He turned up +the Candlemaker Row, and stopped at the Harrow Inn. + +There was a carrier's cart ready to start, and a keen, thin, impatient, +black-a-vised little man, his hand at his gray horse's head, looking +about angrily for something. "Rab, ye thief!" said he, aiming a kick at +my great friend, who drew cringing up, and, avoiding the heavy shoe with +more agility than dignity, and watching his master's eye, slunk dismayed +under the cart, his ears down, and as much as he had of tail down too. + +What a man this must be,--thought I,--to whom my tremendous hero turns +tail! The carrier saw the muzzle hanging, cut and useless, from his +neck, and I eagerly told him the story, which Bob and I always thought, +and still think, Homer, or King David, or Sir Walter, alone were worthy +to rehearse. The severe little man was mitigated, and condescended to +say, "Rab, ma man, puir Rabbie!"--whereupon the stump of a tail rose +up, the ears were cocked, the eyes filled, and were comforted; the two +friends were reconciled. "Hupp!" and a stroke of the whip were given to +Jess; and off went the three. + +Bob and I buried the Game Chicken that night (we had not much of a +tea) in the back-green of his house, in Melville Street, No. 17, with +considerable gravity and silence; and being at the time in the Iliad, +and, like all boys, Trojans, we called him Hector, of course. + + + + Six years have passed,--a long time for a boy and a dog: Bob Ainslie is +off to the wars; I am a medical student, and clerk at Minto House +Hospital. Rab I saw almost every week, on the Wednesday; and we had much +pleasant intimacy. I found the way to his heart by frequent scratching +of his huge head, and an occasional bone. When I did not notice him he +would plant himself straight before me, and stand wagging that bud of a +tail, and looking up, with his head a little to the one side. His master +I occasionally saw; he used to call me "Maister John," but was laconic +as any Spartan. + +One fine October afternoon, I was leaving the hospital, when I saw the +large gate open, and in walked Rab, with that great and easy saunter of +his. He looked as if taking general possession of the place; like the +Duke of Wellington entering a subdued city, satiated with victory and +peace. After him came Jess, now white from age, with her cart, and in it +a woman carefully wrapped up,--the carrier leading the horse anxiously, +and looking back. When he saw me, James (for his name was James Noble) +made a curt and grotesque "boo," and said, "Maister John, this is the +mistress; she's got a trouble in her breest,--some kind o' an income, +we're thinkin'." + +By this time I saw the woman's face; she was sitting on a sack filled +with straw, her husband's plaid round her, and his big-coat, with its +large white metal buttons, over her feet. + +I never saw a more unforgettable face,--pale, serious, LONELY, +[Footnote: It is not easy giving this look by one word: it was +expressive of her being so much of her life alone.] delicate, sweet, +without being at all what we call fine. She looked sixty, and had on a +mutch, white as snow, with its black ribbon; her silvery, smooth hair +setting off her dark-gray eyes,--eyes such as one sees only twice or +thrice in a lifetime, full of suffering, full also of the overcoming of +it; her eyebrows [Footnote: "Black brows, they say, + Become some women best; so that there be not + Too much hair there, BUT IN A SEMICIRCLE + OR A HALF-MOON MADE WITH A PEN."--A WINTER'S TALE.] + black and delicate, and her mouth firm, patient, and contented, which +few mouths ever are. + +As I have said, I never saw a more beautiful countenance, or one more +subdued to settled quiet. "Ailie," said James, "this is Maister John, +the young doctor; Rab's freend, ye ken. We often speak aboot you, +doctor." She smiled, and made a movement, but said nothing, and prepared +to come down, putting her plaid aside and rising. Had Solomon, in all +his glory, been handing down the Queen of Sheba at his palace gate, +he could not have done it more daintily, more tenderly, more like a +gentleman, than did James the Howgate carrier, when he lifted down Ailie +his wife. The contrast of his small, swarthy, weather-beaten, keen, +worldly face to hers--pale, subdued, and beautiful--was something +wonderful. Rab looked on concerned and puzzled, but ready for anything +that might turn up,--were it to strangle the nurse, the porter, or even +me. Ailie and he seemed great friends. + +"As I was sayin', she's got a kind o' trouble in her breest, doctor: +wull ye tak' a look at it?" We walked into the consulting-room, all +four, Rab grim and comic, willing to be happy and confidential if cause +could be shown, willing also to be the reverse on the same terms. Ailie +sat down, undid her open gown and her lawn handkerchief round her +neck, and, without a word, showed me her right breast. I looked at and +examined it carefully,--she and James watching me, and Rab eying all +three. What could I say? There it was, that had once been so soft, so +shapely, so white, so gracious and bountiful, so "full of all blessed +conditions,"--hard as a stone, a centre of horrid pain, making that +pale face, with its gray, lucid, reasonable eyes, and its sweet resolved +mouth, express the full measure of suffering overcome. Why was that +gentle, modest, sweet woman, clean and lovable, condemned by God to bear +such a burden? + +I got her away to bed. "May Rab and me bide?" said James. "YOU may; and +Rab, if he will behave himself." "I'se warrant he's do that, doctor;" +and in slunk the faithful beast. I wish you could have seen him. There +are no such dogs now. He belonged to a lost tribe. As I have said, he +was brindled, and gray like Rubislaw granite; his hair short, hard, and +close, like a lion's; his body thick-set, like a little bull,--a sort of +compressed Hercules of a dog. He must have been ninety pounds' weight, +at the least; he had a large blunt head; his muzzle black as night, his +mouth blacker than any night, a tooth or two--being all he had--gleaming +out of his jaws of darkness. His head was scarred with the records of +old wounds, a sort of series of fields of battle all over it; one eye +out, one ear cropped as close as was Archbishop Leighton's father's; +the remaining eye had the power of two; and above it, and in constant +communication with it, was a tattered rag of an ear, which was forever +unfurling itself, like an old flag; and then that bud of a tail, about +one inch long, if it could in any sense be said to be long, being as +broad as long,--the mobility, the instantaneousness of that bud were +very funny and surprising, and its expressive twinklings and winkings, +the intercommunications between the eye, the ear, and it, were of the +oddest and swiftest. + +Rab had the dignity and simplicity of great size; and, having fought his +way all along the road to absolute supremacy, he was as mighty in his +own line as Julius Caesar or the Duke of Wellington, and had the gravity +[Footnote: A Highland game-keeper, when asked why a certain terrier, of +singular pluck, was so much more solemn than the other dogs, said, "Oh, +sir, life's full o' sairiousness to him: he just never can get eneuch o' +fechtin'."] of all great fighters. + +You must have often observed the likeness of certain men to certain +animals, and of certain dogs to men. Now, I never looked at Rab without +thinking of the great Baptist preacher, Andrew Fuller. [Footnote: Fuller +was in early life, when a farmer lad at Soham, famous as a boxer; not +quarrelsome, but not without "the stern delight" a man of strength and +courage feels in their exercise. Dr. Charles Stewart, of Dunearn, +whose rare gifts and graces as a physician, a divine, a scholar, and a +gentleman live only in the memory of those few who knew and survive him, +liked to tell how Mr. Fuller used to say that when he was in the pulpit, +and saw a buirdly man come along the passage, he would instinctively +draw himself up, measure his imaginary antagonist, and forecast how +he would deal with him, his hands meanwhile condensing into fists and +tending to "square." He must have been a hard hitter if he boxed as he +preached,--what "The Fancy" would call an "ugly customer."] The same +large, heavy, menacing, combative, sombre, honest countenance, the +same deep inevitable eye, the same look,--as of thunder asleep, but +ready,--neither a dog nor a man to be trifled with. + +Next day, my master, the surgeon, examined Ailie. There was no doubt it +must kill her, and soon. It could be removed; it might never return; it +would give her speedy relief: she should have it done. She courtesied, +looked at James, and said, "When?" "To-morrow," said the kind +surgeon,--a man of few words. She and James and Rab and I retired. +I noticed that he and she spoke little, but seemed to anticipate +everything in each other. + +The following day, at noon, the students came in, hurrying up the great +stair. At the first landing-place, on a small well-known black board, +was a bit of paper fastened by wafers, and many remains of old wafers +beside it. On the paper were the words, "An operation to-day.--J.B., +CLERK" + +Up ran the youths, eager to secure good places: in they crowded, full of +interest and talk. "What's the case?" "Which side is it?" + +Don't think them heartless; they are neither better nor worse than you +or I; they get over their professional horrors, and into their proper +work; and in them pity, as an EMOTION, ending in itself or at best in +tears and a long-drawn breath, lessens,--while pity, as a MOTIVE, is +quickened, and gains power and purpose. It is well for poor human nature +that it is so. + +The operating theatre is crowded; much talk and fun, and all the +cordiality and stir of youth. The surgeon with his staff of assistants +is there. In comes Ailie: one look at her quiets and abates the eager +students. That beautiful old woman is too much for them; they sit down, +and are dumb, and gaze at her. These rough boys feel the power of her +presence. She walks in quickly, but without haste; dressed in her +mutch, her neckerchief, her white dimity short-gown, her black bombazine +petticoat, showing her white worsted stockings and her carpet shoes. +Behind her was James with Rab. James sat down in the distance, and took +that huge and noble head between his knees. Rab looked perplexed and +dangerous; forever cocking his ear and dropping it as fast. + +Ailie stepped up on a seat, and laid herself on the table, as her friend +the surgeon told her; arranged herself, gave a rapid look at James, shut +her eyes, rested herself on me, and took my hand. The operation was at +once begun; it was necessarily slow; and chloroform--one of God's best +gifts to his suffering children--was then unknown. The surgeon did his +work. The pale face showed its pain, but was still and silent. Rab's +soul was working within him; he saw that something strange was going +on,--blood flowing from his mistress, and she suffering; his ragged +ear was up, and importunate; he growled and gave now and then a sharp +impatient yelp; he would have liked to have done something to that man. +But James had him firm, and gave him a GLOWER from time to time, and an +intimation of a possible kick;--all the better for James, it kept his +eye and his mind off Ailie. + +It is over: she is dressed, steps gently and decently down from the +table, looks for James; then, turning to the surgeon and the students, +she courtesies, and in a low, clear voice begs their pardon if she has +behaved ill. The students--all of us--wept like children; the surgeon +happed her up carefully, and, resting on James and me, Ailie went to her +room, Rab following. We put her to bed. James took off his heavy shoes, +crammed with tackets, heel-capt and toe-capt, and put them carefully +under the table, saying, "Maister John, I'm for nane o' yer strynge +nurse bodies for Ailie. I'll be her nurse, and I'll gang aboot on my +stockin' soles as canny as pussy." And so he did; and handy and +clever and swift and tender as any woman was that horny-handed, snell, +peremptory little man. Everything she got he gave her: he seldom slept; +and often I saw his small shrewd eyes out of the darkness, fixed on her. +As before, they spoke little. + +Rab behaved well, never moving, showing us how meek and gentle he +could be, and occasionally, in his sleep, letting us know that he was +demolishing some adversary. He took a walk with me every day, generally +to the Candlemaker Row; but he was sombre and mild, declined doing +battle, though some fit cases offered, and indeed submitted to sundry +indignities, and was always very ready to turn, and came faster back, +and trotted up the stair with much lightness, and went straight to that +door. + +Jess, the mare, had been sent, with her weather-worn cart, to Howgate, +and had doubtless her own dim and placid meditations and confusions on +the absence of her master and Rab and her unnatural freedom from the +road and her cart. + +For some days Ailie did well. The wound healed "by the first intention;" +for, as James said, "Oor Ailie's skin's ower clean to beil." The +students came in quiet and anxious, and surrounded her bed. She said +she liked to see their young, honest faces. The surgeon dressed her, and +spoke to her in his own short kind way, pitying her through his eyes, +Rab and James outside the circle,--Rab being now reconciled, and +even cordial, and having made up his mind that as yet nobody required +worrying, but, as you may suppose, semper paratus. + +So far well; but four days after the operation my patient had a sudden +and long shivering, a "groosin'," as she called it. I saw her soon +after; her eyes were too bright, her cheek colored; she was restless, +and ashamed of being so; the balance was lost; mischief had begun. On +looking at the wound, a blush of red told the secret: her pulse was +rapid, her breathing anxious and quick; she wasn't herself, as she said, +and was vexed at her restlessness. We tried what we could. James did +everything, was everywhere; never in the way, never out of it; Rab +subsided under the table into a dark place, and was motionless, all but +his eye, which followed every one. Ailie got worse; began to wander in +her mind, gently; was more demonstrative in her ways to James, rapid +in her questions, and sharp at times. He was vexed, and said, "She was +never that way afore,--no, never." For a time she knew her head was +wrong, and was always asking our pardon,--the dear, gentle old woman: +then delirium set in strong, without pause. Her brain gave way, and then +came that terrible spectacle,-- + + "The intellectual power, through words and things, + Went sounding on its dim and perilous way;" + +she sang bits of old songs and Psalms, stopping suddenly, mingling the +Psalms of David, and the diviner words of his Son and Lord, with homely +odds and ends and scraps of ballads. + +Nothing more touching, or in a sense more strangely beautiful, did I +ever witness. Her tremulous, rapid, affectionate, eager, Scotch voice, +the swift, aimless, bewildered mind, the baffled utterance, the bright +and perilous eye, some wild words, some household cares, something +for James, the names of the dead, Rab called rapidly and in a "fremyt" +voice, and he starting up, surprised, and slinking off as if he were to +blame somehow, or had been dreaming he heard. Many eager questions and +beseechings which James and I could make nothing of, and on which she +seemed to set her all and then sink back ununderstood. It was very +sad, but better than many things that are not called sad. James hovered +about, put out and miserable, but active and exact as ever; read to +her, when there was a lull, short bits from the Psalms, prose and metre, +chanting the latter in his own rude and serious way, showing great +knowledge of the fit words, bearing up like a man, and doting over her +as his "ain Ailie." "Ailie, ma woman!" "Ma ain bonnie wee dawtie!" + +The end was drawing on: the golden bowl was breaking; the silver cord +was fast being loosed; that animula blandula, vagula, hospes, comesque, +was about to flee. The body and the soul--companions for sixty +years--were being sundered, and taking leave. She was walking, alone, +through the valley of that shadow into which one day we must all +enter; and yet she was not alone, for we know whose rod and staff were +comforting her. + +One night she had fallen quiet, and, as we hoped, asleep; her eyes were +shut. We put down the gas, and sat watching her. Suddenly she sat up in +bed, and, taking a bed-gown which was lying on it rolled up, she held it +eagerly to her breast,--to the right side. We could see her eyes bright +with a surprising tenderness and joy, bending over this bundle of +clothes. She held it as a woman holds her sucking child; opening out her +night-gown impatiently, and holding it close, and brooding over it, and +murmuring foolish little words, as over one whom his mother comforteth, +and who sucks and is satisfied. It was pitiful and strange to see her +wasted dying look, keen and yet vague,--her immense love. + +"Preserve me!" groaned James, giving way. And then she rocked backward +and forward, as if to make it sleep, hushing it, and wasting on it her +infinite fondness. "Wae's me, doctor! I declare she's thinkin' it's that +bairn." "What bairn?" "The only bairn we ever had; our wee Mysie, and +she's in the Kingdom forty years and mair." It was plainly true: the +pain in the breast, telling its urgent story to a bewildered, ruined +brain, was misread and mistaken; it suggested to her the uneasiness of +a breast full of milk, and then the child; and so again once more they +were together, and she had her ain wee Mysie in her bosom. + +This was the close. She sank rapidly: the delirium left her; but, as she +whispered, she was "clean silly;" it was the lightening before the final +darkness. After having for some time lain still, her eyes shut, she +said, "James!" He came close to her, and, lifting up her calm, clear, +beautiful eyes, she gave him a long look, turned to me kindly but +shortly, looked for Rab but could not see him, then turned to her +husband again, as if she would never leave off looking, shut her eyes +and composed herself. She lay for some time breathing quick, and +passed away so gently that, when we thought she was gone, James, in his +old-fashioned way, held the mirror to her face. After a long pause, +one small spot of dimness was breathed out; it vanished away, and never +returned, leaving the blank clear darkness without a stain. "What is our +life? it is even a vapor, which appeareth for a little time, and then +vanisheth away." + +Rab all this time had been fully awake and motionless: he came forward +beside us: Ailie's hand, which James had held, was hanging down; it was +soaked with his tears; Rab licked it all over carefully, looked at her, +and returned to his place under the table. + +James and I sat, I don't know how long, but for some time, saying +nothing: he started up abruptly, and with some noise went to the table, +and, putting his right fore and middle fingers each into a shoe, pulled +them out, and put them on, breaking one of the leather latchets, and +muttering in anger, "I never did the like o' that afore!" + +I believe he never did; nor after either. "Rab!" he said, roughly, and +pointing with his thumb to the bottom of the bed. Rab leaped up, and +settled himself, his head and eye to the dead face. "Maister John, +ye'll wait for me," said the carrier; and disappeared in the darkness, +thundering downstairs in his heavy shoes. I ran to a front window; there +he was, already round the house, and out at the gate, fleeing like a +shadow. + +I was afraid about him, and yet not afraid: so I sat down beside Rab, +and, being wearied, fell asleep. I awoke from a sudden noise outside. It +was November, and there had been a heavy fall of snow. Rab was in statu +quo; he heard the noise too, and plainly knew it, but never moved. I +looked out; and there, at the gate, in the dim morning,--for the sun +was not up,--was Jess and the cart, a cloud of steam rising from the old +mare. I did not see James; he was already at the door, and came up the +stairs and met me. It was less than three hours since he left, and he +must have posted out--who knows how?--to Howgate, full nine miles off, +yoked Jess, and driven her astonished into town. He had an armful of +blankets, and was streaming with perspiration. He nodded to me, spread +out on the floor two pairs of clean old blankets having at their corners +"A. G., 1794," in large letters in red worsted. These were the +initials of Alison Graeme, and James may have looked in at her from +without--himself unseen but not unthought of--when he was "wat, wat, and +weary," and, after having walked many a mile over the hills, may +have seen her sitting, while "a' the lave were sleepin'," and by the +firelight working her name on the blankets for her ain James's bed. + +He motioned Rab down, and, taking his wife in his arms, laid her in +the blankets, and happed her carefully and firmly up, leaving the face +uncovered; and then, lifting her, he nodded again sharply to me, and, +with a resolved but utterly miserable face, strode along the passage, +and down-stairs, followed by Rab. I followed with a light; but he didn't +need it. I went out, holding stupidly the candle in my hand in the calm +frosty air; we were soon at the gate. I could have helped him, but I saw +he was not to be meddled with, and he was strong and did not need it. He +laid her down as tenderly, as safely, as he had lifted her out ten days +before,--as tenderly as when he had her first in his arms when she was +only "A. G.,"--sorted her, leaving that beautiful sealed face open to +the heavens; and then, taking Jess by the head, he moved away. He did +not notice me; neither did Rab, who presided behind the cart. + +I stood till they passed through the long shadow of the College and +turned up Nicolson Street. I heard the solitary cart sound through the +streets and die away and come again; and I returned, thinking of that +company going up Libberton Brae, then along Roslin Muir, the morning +light touching the Pentlands and making them like on-looking +ghosts, then down the hill through Auchindinny woods, past "haunted +Woodhouselee;" and as daybreak came sweeping up the bleak Lammermuirs, +and fell on his own door, the company would stop, and James would take +the key, and lift Ailie up again, laying her on her own bed, and, having +put Jess up, would return with Rab and shut the door. + +James buried his wife, with his neighbors mourning, Rab watching the +proceedings from a distance. It was snow, and that black ragged hole +would look strange in the midst of the swelling spotless cushion of +white. James looked after everything; then rather suddenly fell ill, and +took to bed; was insensible when the doctor came, and soon died. A sort +of low fever was prevailing in the village, and his want of sleep, his +exhaustion, and his misery made him apt to take it. The grave was not +difficult to reopen. A fresh fall of snow had again made all things +white and smooth; Rab once more looked on, and slunk home to the stable. + +And what of Rab? I asked for him next week at the new carrier who got +the good-will of James's business and was now master of Jess and her +cart. "How's Rab?" He put me off, and said, rather rudely, "What's YOUR +business wi' the dowg?" I was not to be so put off. "Where's Rab?" He, +getting confused and red, and intermeddling with his hair, said, '"Deed, +sir, Rab's deid." "Dead! what did he die of?" "Weel, sir," said he, +getting redder, "he didna exactly dee; he was killed. I had to brain him +wi' a rackpin; there was nae doin' wi' him. He lay in the treviss wi' +the mear, and wadna come oot. I tempit him wi' kail and meat, but he wad +tak' naething, and keepit me fra feedin' the beast, and he was aye gur +gurrin', and grup gruppin' me by the legs. I was laith to mak' awa wi' +the auld dowg, his like wasna atween this and Thornhill,--but, 'deed, +sir, I could do naething else." I believed him. Fit end for Rab, quick +and complete. His teeth and his friends gone, why should he keep the +peace and be civil? + +He was buried in the braeface, near the burn, the children of the +village, his companions, who used to make very free with him and sit on +his ample stomach as he lay half asleep at the door in the sun, watching +the solemnity. + +[Illustration of a grave] + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rab and His Friends, by John Brown + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RAB AND HIS FRIENDS *** + +***** This file should be named 5420.txt or 5420.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/5/4/2/5420/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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