•A WINDOW- 
 m -IN THRUMS 
 
 BARRIE
 
 LlbKAKT 
 
 INIVn^^TY OP 
 SAN DIEGO
 
 4oi4
 
 J, M. BARRIE
 
 A WINDOW IN THRUMS 
 
 BY 
 
 J. M. BARRIE 
 
 A uthor of 
 
 The Little Minister^' " W^n a Man's SingU; 
 ''Auld Light Idylls;' " My Lady Nicotifie," 
 Etc. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 HENRY ALTEMUS
 
 Altemus' 
 bookbindery 
 Philadelphia
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 CHAPTER. PAGE. 
 
 I. The House on the Brae 5 
 
 II. On the Track of the Minister 18 
 
 III. Preparing to Receive Company. . . 29 
 
 IV. Waiting for the Doctor 38 
 
 V. A Humorist on His Calling 51 
 
 VI. Dead this Twenty Years 65 
 
 VII. The Statement of Tibbie liirse. ... Si 
 
 VIII. A Cloak with 15eads 92 
 
 IX. The Power of Beauty 108 
 
 X. A Magnum Opus 118 
 
 XI. The Ghost Cradle 127 
 
 XII. The Tragedy of a Wife 142 
 
 XIH. Making the Best of It 153 
 
 XIV. Visitors at the Manse 164 
 
 XV. How Gavin Birse Put It to Mag 
 
 Lownie 176 
 
 XVI. The Son from London 189
 
 Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER. , PAGE. 
 
 XVII. A Home for Geniuses 209 
 
 XVIII. Leeby and Jamie 219 
 
 XIX. The Tale of a Glove 234 
 
 XX. The Last Night 248 
 
 XXI. Jess Left Alone 261 
 
 XXII. Jamie's Home-Coming 272
 
 A Window In Thrums. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE HOUSE OX THE BRAE. 
 
 Ox the bump of green round which 
 the brae twists, at the top of the brae, 
 and within cry of T'nowhead Farm, 
 still stands a one-story house, whose 
 whitewashed walls, streaked with the 
 discoloration that rain leaves, look 
 yellow when the snow comes. In the 
 old days the stiff ascent left Thrums 
 behind, and where is now the making 
 of a suburb was only a poor row of 
 dwellings and a manse, with Hendry's 
 cot to watch the brae. The house 
 stood bare, without a shrub, in a 
 
 5
 
 6 B liminDow (n Qlbrume. 
 
 garden whose paling did not go all the 
 way round, the potato pit being only- 
 kept out of the road, that here sets off 
 southward, by a broken dyke of stones 
 and earth. On each side of the slate- 
 colored door was a window of knotted 
 glass. Ropes were flung over the 
 thatch to keep the roof on in wind. 
 
 Into this humble abode I would 
 take any one who cares to accompany 
 me. But you must not come in a 
 contemptuous mood, thinking that 
 the poor are but a stage removed from 
 beasts of burden, as some cruel writers 
 of these days say ; nor will I have you 
 turn over with your foot the shabby 
 horse-hair chairs that Leeby kept so 
 speckless, and Hendry weaved for 
 years to buy and Jess so loved to look 
 upon. 
 
 I speak of the chairs, but if we go 
 together into the "room" they will 
 not be visible to you. For a long
 
 Zbc "fcouBC en tbc JBrae. 7 
 
 time the house has been to let. Here, 
 on the left of the doorway, as we enter, 
 is the room, without a shred of furni- 
 ture in it except the boards of two 
 closed-in beds. The floorinjj is not 
 steady, and here and there holes have 
 been eaten into the planks. You 
 can scarcely stand upright beneath the 
 decaying ceiling. Worn boards and 
 ragii^ed walls, and the rusty ribs fallen 
 from the fireplace, are all that meet 
 your eyes, but I see a round, unsteady, 
 waxcloth-covered table, with four 
 books lying at equal distances on it. 
 There are six prim chairs, two of them 
 not to be sat upon, backed against the 
 walls, and between the window and 
 the fireplace a chest of drawers, with a 
 snowy coverlet. On the drawers stands 
 a board with colored marbles for the 
 game of solitaire, and I have only to 
 open the drawer with the loose handle 
 to bring out the dambrod. In the
 
 8 B MlnDow in XTbrums. 
 
 carved wood frame over the window 
 hangs Jamie's portrait ; in the only 
 other frame a picture of Daniel in the 
 den of lions, sewn by Leeby in wool. 
 Over the chimney-piece with its shells, 
 in which the roar of the sea can be 
 heard, are strung three rows of bird's 
 eggs. Once again we might be ex- 
 pecting company to tea. 
 
 The passage is narrow. There is a 
 square hole between the rafters, and a 
 ladder leading up to it. You may climb 
 and look into the attic, as Jess liked to 
 hear me call my tiny garret-room. I 
 am stiffer now than in the days when 
 I lodged with Jess during the summer 
 holiday I am trying to bring back, and 
 there is no need for me to ascend. 
 Do not laugh at the newspapers with 
 which Leeby papered the garret, nor 
 at the yarn Hendry stuffed into the 
 windy holes. He did it to warm the 
 house for Jess. But the paper must
 
 XLbe f)0U3c on tbe JBrae. 9 
 
 have gone to pieces and the yarn 
 rotted decades ago. 
 
 I have kept the kitchen for the last, 
 as Jamie did on the dire day of which 
 1 shall have to tell. It has a flooring 
 of stone now, where there used only 
 to be hard earth, and a broken pane in 
 the window is indifferently stuffed 
 with rags. But it is the other window 
 I turn to, with a pain at my heart, and 
 pride and fondness too, the square foot 
 of glass where Jess sat in her chair and 
 looked down the brae. 
 
 Ah, that brae! The history of tragic 
 little Thrums is sunk into it like the 
 stones it swallows in the winter. 
 We have all found the brae long 
 and steep in the spring of life. Do 
 you remember how the child you once 
 were sat at the foot of it and wondered 
 if a new world began at the top ? It 
 climbs from a shallow burn, and we 
 used to sit on the brig a long time
 
 lo B Tldindovv in ^brume. 
 
 before venturing to climb. As boys we 
 ran up the brae. As men and women, 
 young- and in our prime, we almost 
 forgot that it was there. But the au- 
 tumn of life comes, and the brae grows 
 steeper ; then the winter, and once 
 again we are as the child pausing ap- 
 prehensively on the brig. Yet we are 
 no longer the child ; we look now for 
 no new world at the top, only for a little 
 garden and a tiny house, and a hand- 
 loom in the house. It is only a garden 
 of kail and potatoes, but there may be 
 a line of daisies, white and red, on 
 each side of the narrow footpath, and 
 honeysuckle over the door. Life is 
 not always hard, even after backs grow 
 bent, and we know that all braes lead 
 only to the grave. 
 
 This is Jess' window. For more than 
 twenty years she had not been able to 
 go so far as the door, and only once 
 while I knew her was she ben in the
 
 Zbc t30U6c on tbc Brae. n 
 
 room. With her husband, Hendry, or 
 their only daug^hter, Leeby, to lean 
 upon, and her hand ckitching her staff, 
 she took twice a day, when she was 
 strong, the journey between her bed 
 and the winch)w where stood her chair. 
 She did not He there looking at the spar- 
 rows or at Leeby redding up the house, 
 and I hardly ever heard her complain. 
 All the sewing was done by her; she 
 often baked on a table pushed close to 
 the window, and by leaning forward 
 she could stir the porridge. Leeby 
 was seldom off her feet, but I do not 
 know that she did more than Jess, who 
 liked to tell me, when she had a mo- 
 ment to spare, that she had a terrible 
 lot to be thankful for. 
 
 To those who dwell in great cities 
 Thrums is only a small place, but what 
 a clatter of life it has for me when I 
 come to it from my school-house in the 
 glen. Had my lot been cast in a town
 
 12 B lUiuctow in Cbrum^. 
 
 I would no doubt have soug:ht country 
 parts during: my September holiday, 
 but the school-house is quiet even when 
 the summer takes brakes full of sports- 
 men and others past the top of my foot- 
 path, and I was always light-hearted 
 when Craigiebuckles cart bore me 
 into the din of Thrums. I only once 
 stayed during- the whole oi my holiday 
 at the house on the brae, but I knew 
 its inmates for many years, including 
 Jamie, the son. who was a barber in 
 London. Of their ancestry I never 
 heard. "With us it was only some of 
 the articles of furniture, or perhaps a 
 snuff-muil. that had a genealogical tree. 
 In the house on the brae was a great 
 kettle, called the boiler, that was said 
 to be fifty years old in the days of 
 Hendry "s grandfather, of whom noth- 
 ing more is known. Jess' chair, which 
 had carved arms and a seat stuffed with 
 rags, had been Snecky Hobart's father's
 
 Zbc "bouac on tbe J6rac. 13 
 
 before it was hers, and old Snecky 
 bought it at a roup in the Tenements. 
 Jess' rarest possession was, perhaps, 
 the christening robe that even people 
 at a distance came to borrow. Her 
 mother could count up a hundred per- 
 sons who had been baptized in it. 
 
 Every one of the hundred, I believe, 
 is dead, and even I cannot now pick 
 out Jess and Hendry's grave ; but I 
 heard recently that the christening robe 
 is still in use. It is strange that I 
 should still be left after so many 
 changes, one of the three or four who 
 can to-day stand on the brae and 
 point out Jess' window. The little 
 window commands the incline to the 
 point where the brae suddenly jerks 
 out of sight in its climb down into the 
 town. The steep path up the com- 
 monty makes for this elbow of the 
 brae ; and thus, whichever way the 
 traveler takes, it is here that he comes
 
 14 B "MinOow in ^brums. 
 
 first into sight of the window. Here, 
 too, those who go to the town from 
 the south get their first glimpse of 
 Thrums. 
 
 Carts pass up and down the brae 
 every few minutes, and there comes 
 an occasional gig. Seldom is the brae 
 empty, for many live beyond the top 
 of it now, and men and women go 
 by to their work, children to school 
 or play. Not one of the children I see 
 from the window to-day is known 
 to me, and most of the men and 
 women I only recognize by their 
 likeness to their parents. That sweet- 
 faced old Vv'oman with the shawl on 
 her shoulders may be one of the girls 
 who was playing at the game of pal- 
 aulays when Jamie stole into Thrums 
 for the last time ; the man who is 
 leaning on the commonty gate gather- 
 ing breath for the last quarter of the 
 brae may, as a barefooted callant, have
 
 ILbc 1bou6c on tbc JBrae. 15 
 
 been one of those who chased Cree 
 Queery past the ]')Oor-hoiisc. I can- 
 not say ; but this I know, that the 
 grandparents of most of these boys 
 and girls were once young with me. 
 If 1 see the sons and daughters of my 
 friends grown okl, I also see the grand- 
 children spinning the peerie and hunk- 
 ering at I-dree-I-dree — I-droppit-it — as 
 we did so long ago. The world re- 
 mains as young as ever. The lovers 
 that met on the commonty in the 
 gloaming are gone, but there are other 
 lovers to take their place, and still the 
 commonty is here. The sun had 
 sunk on a tine day in ]\\nc, early in 
 the century, when Hendry and Jess, 
 newly married, he in a rich moleskin 
 waistcoat, she in a white net cap, 
 walked to the house on the brae that 
 was to be their home. So Jess has 
 told me. Here again has been just 
 such a day, and somewhere in Thrums
 
 i6 :a Tldin^ovv in ^brums. 
 
 there may be just such a couple, set- 
 ting out for their home behind a horse 
 with white ears instead of walking, 
 but with the same hopes and fears, 
 and the same lovelight in their eyes. 
 The world does not age. The hearse 
 passes over the brae and up the straight 
 burying-ground road, but still there is 
 a cry for the christening robe. 
 
 Jess' window was a beacon by night 
 to travelers in the dark, and it will be 
 so in the future when there are none to 
 remember Jess. There are many such 
 windows still, with loving faces behind 
 them. From them we watch for the 
 friends and relatives who are coming 
 back, and some, alas ! watch in vain. 
 Not every one returns who takes the 
 elbow of the brae bravely, or waves 
 his handkerchief to those who watch 
 from the window with wet eyes, and 
 some return too late. To Jess, at her 
 window always when she was not in
 
 Zbc tonec on tbc :©rac. 17 
 
 bed, things happy and mournful and 
 terrible came into view. At this win- 
 dow she sat for twenty years or more 
 looking at the world as through a tele- 
 scope ; and here an awful ordeal was 
 gone through after her sweet, untar- 
 nished soul had been given back to 
 God
 
 i8 B MinDow in ^brums. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ON THE TRACK OF THE MINISTER. 
 
 On the afternoon of the Saturday 
 that carted me and my two boxes to 
 Thrums, I was ben in the room play- 
 ing Hendry at the dambrod. I had 
 one of the room chairs, but Leeby 
 brought a chair from the kitchen for 
 her father. Our door stood open, and 
 as Hendry often pondered for two 
 minutes with his hand on a "man," I 
 could have joined in the gossip that 
 was going on but the house. 
 
 "Ay, weel, then, Leeby," said Jess, 
 suddenly, 'Til warrant the minister '11 
 no be preachin' the morn." 
 
 This took Leeby to the window. 
 
 **Yea, yea," she said (and I knew
 
 ©n tbe Uracil of tbe minister. 19 
 
 she was nodding lier head saga- 
 ciously) ; I looked out at the room 
 window^ but all I could see was a 
 man wheeling an empty harrow down 
 the brae. 
 
 " That's Robbie Tosh," continued 
 Leeby ; " an' there's nae doot 'at he's 
 makkin' for the minister's, for he has 
 on his black coat. He'll be to row 
 the minister's luggage to the postcart. 
 Ay, an' that's Davit Lunan's barrow. 
 I ken it by the shaft's bein' spliced wi' 
 yarn. Davit broke the shaft at the 
 sawmill." 
 
 ''He'll be gaen awa for a curran 
 (number of) days, "said Jess, "or he 
 would juist hae taen his bag. Ay, 
 he'll be awa to Edinbory, to see the 
 lass." 
 
 "I wonder wha'U be to preach the 
 morn — tod, it'll likely be jMr. Skinner, 
 frae Dundee ; him an' the minister's 
 chief, ye ken."
 
 20 B TKatn^ow fn tTbrums. 
 
 '*Ye micht gang up to the attic, 
 Leeby, an' see if the spare bedroom 
 vent (chimney) at the manse is gaen. 
 We're sure, if its Mr. Skinner, he'll 
 come wi' the post frae Tilliedrum the 
 nicht, an' sleep at the manse. " 
 
 "Weel, I assure ye," said Leeby, 
 descending from the attic, " it'll no be 
 Mr. Skinner, for no only is the spare 
 bedroom vent no gaen, but the blind's 
 drawn doon frae tap to fut, so they're 
 no even airin' the room. Na, it canna 
 be him ; an' what's mair, it'll be nae- 
 body 'at's to bide a' nicht at the 
 manse." 
 
 "I wouldna say that; na, na. It 
 may only be a student ; an' Marget 
 Dundas (the minister's mother and 
 housekeeper) michtna think it neces- 
 sary to put on a fire for him." 
 
 "Tod, I'll tell ye wha it'll be. I 
 wonder I didna think o' 'im sooner. 
 It'll be the ladWilkie ; him 'at's mither
 
 ©n tbc ^rach ot tbc /ftint^tcr. 21 
 
 mairit on Saml Duthie's wife's brither. 
 They bide in Cupar, an' I mind 'at 
 when the son was here twa or three 
 year syne he was juist gaen to begin 
 the diveenity classes in Glesca. " 
 
 "If that's so, Leeby, he would be 
 sure to bide wi' Sam'l. Hendry, hae 
 ye heard 'at Sam'l Duthie's expeckin' a 
 stranger the nicht? " 
 
 " Haud yer tongue," replied Hen- 
 dry, who was having the worst of the 
 game. 
 
 "Ay, but I ken he is," said Leeby 
 triumphantly to her mother, "for ye 
 mind when I was in at Johnny Watt's 
 (the draper's) Chirsty (Sam'l's wife) 
 was buyin' twa yards o' chintz, an' I 
 couldna think what she would be 
 wantin' 't for ! " 
 
 " I thocht Johnny said to ye 'at it 
 was for a present to Chirsty's auntie ? " 
 
 "Ay, but he juist guessed that ; for, 
 though he tried to get oot o' Chirsty
 
 22 B ulinc>o\v m Cbrum^. 
 
 what she wanted the chintz for. she 
 wouldna tell "im. But I see noo what 
 she was after. The lad Wilkie '11 be to 
 bide wi* them, and Chirsty had bocht 
 the chintz to cover the airm-chair wi". 
 It's ane o" thae hair-bottomed chairs, 
 but terrible torn, so she'll hae covered 
 it for 'im to sit on. ' 
 
 '•' I wouldna wonder but ye're richt, 
 Leeby : for Chirsty would be in an on- 
 common fluster if she thocht the lad's 
 mither was likely to hear 'at her best 
 chair was torn. Ay, ay, bein' a man, 
 he wouldna think to tak aflf the chintz 
 an' hae a look at the chair withoot it. " 
 
 Here Hendn', who had paid no at- 
 tention to the conversation, broke in : 
 
 '•Was ye speirin' had I seen Sam'l 
 Duthie ? I saw im yesterday buyin' 
 a fender at Will'um Crook's roup.'' 
 
 *• A fender I Ay, ay. that settles the 
 queistion," said Leeby : •Til warrant 
 the fender as for Chirsty's parlor. It's
 
 On tbc Crach ot tbc Minister. 23 
 
 preyed on Chirsty's mind, they say, 
 this fower-and-thirty year 'at she does- 
 na hae a richt parlor fender. '" 
 
 " Leeby, look ! That's Robbie Tosh 
 wi' the barrow. He has a michty load 
 o' luggage. Am thinkin' the minis- 
 ter's bound for Tilliedrum." 
 
 'Xa, he's no, he's gaen to Edin- 
 bory, as ye micht ken by the bandbox. 
 That'll be his mither's bonnet he's 
 takkin' back to get altered. Ye'U 
 mind she was never pleased wi' the 
 set o' the flowers." 
 
 * ' Weel, weel, here comes the min- 
 ister himsel', an' very snod he is. Ay, 
 ^Target's been puttin' new braid on his 
 coat, an' he's carryin' the sma' black 
 bag he bocht in Dundee last year : 
 he'll hae's nicht-shirt an' a comb in't, 
 I dinna doot. Ye micht rin to the 
 conier Leeby, an' see if he cries in at 
 Jess McTaggart's in passin'." 
 
 ''It's my opeenion," said Leeby,
 
 24 B MinDow in ^bx\xm6, 
 
 returning excitedly from the corner, 
 '''at the lad Wilkie's no to be preachin' 
 the morn, after a'. When I gangs to 
 the corner, at ony rate, what think 
 ye's the first think I see but the min- 
 ister an' Sam'l Duthie meetin' face to 
 face ? Ay, weel, it's gospel am tellin' 
 ye when I say as Sam'l flung back 
 his head an' walkit richt by the minis- 
 ter ! " 
 
 " Losh keep's a', Leeby ; ye say 
 that ? They maun hae haen a quar- 
 rel." 
 
 *'I'm thinkin' we'll hae Mr. Skinner 
 i' the poopit the morn after a'. " 
 
 **It may be, it may be. Ay, ay, 
 look, Leeby, whatna bit kimmer's that 
 wi' the twa jugs in her hand ? " 
 
 '' Eh ! Ou, it'll be Lawyer Ogilvy's 
 servant lassieky gaen to the farm o' 
 T'nowhead for the milk. She gangs 
 ilka Saturday nicht. But what did ye 
 say — twa jugs ? Tod, let's see ! Ay,
 
 On tbe ^rack of tbe /ibinigter. 25 
 
 she has so, a big jug an' a little ane. 
 The little ane '11 be for cream ; an', 
 sal, the big ane's bigger na usual." 
 
 "There maun be something gaen on 
 at the lawyer's if they're buyin' cream, 
 Leeby. Their reg'lar thing's twopence 
 worth o' milk." 
 
 **Ay, but I assure ye that sma' jug's 
 for cream, an' I dinna doot mysel' but 
 'at there's to be fower-pence worth o' 
 milk this nicht. " 
 
 "There's to be a puddin' made the 
 morn, Leeby. Ou, ay, a'thing points 
 to that ; an' we're very sure there's nae 
 puddin's at the lawyer's on the Sabbath 
 onless they hae company." 
 
 " I dinna ken wha' they can hae, if 
 it be na that brither o' the wife's 'at 
 bides oot by Aberdeen." 
 
 " Na, it's no him, Leeby; na, na. 
 He's no weel to do, an' they wouldna 
 be buyin' cream for 'im." 
 
 "I'll run up to the attic again, an'
 
 26 B minDow in TTbrumg. 
 
 see if there's ony stir at the lawyer's 
 hoose." 
 
 By and by Leeby returned in tri- 
 umph. 
 
 " Ou, ay," she said, ''they're ex- 
 pectin' veesitors at the lawyer's, for I 
 could see twa o' the bairns dressed 
 up to the nines, an' Mistress Ogilvy 
 doesna dress at them in that way for 
 naething. " 
 
 " It far beats me though, Leeby, to 
 guess wha's comin' to them. Ay, but 
 stop a meenute, I wouldna wonder, no, 
 really I would not wonder but what 
 it'll be " 
 
 * ' The very thing 'at was passin' 
 through my head, mother." 
 
 "Ye mean 'at the lad Wilkie '11 be 
 to bide wi' the lawyer i'stead o' wi' 
 Sam'l Duthie ? Sal, am thinkin' that's 
 it. Ye ken Sam'l an' the lawyer mar- 
 ried on cousins ; but Mistress Ogilvy 
 ay lookit on Chirsty as dirt aneath her
 
 ®n tbe ^racft ot tbc /IMnlster. 27 
 
 feet. She would be glad to get a min- 
 ister, though, to the hoose, an' so I 
 warrant the lad Wilkie '11 be to bide 
 a'nicht at the lawyer's. " 
 
 ''But what would Chirsty be doin* 
 gettin' the chintz an' the fender in that 
 case ? " 
 
 "Ou, she'd been expectin' the lad, 
 of course. Sal, she'll be in a michty 
 tantrum aboot this. I wouldna won- 
 der though she gets Sam'l to gang 
 ower to the U. P. 's. " 
 
 Leeby went once more to the attic. 
 
 **Ye're wrang, mother," she cried 
 out. " Whaever's to preach the morn 
 is to bide at the manse, for the min- 
 ister's servant's been at Baker Duffs 
 buyin' short-bread — half a lippy, nae 
 doot. " 
 
 ''Are ye sure o' that, Leeby ? " 
 
 ' ' Oh, am certain. The servant gaed 
 in to Duff's the noo, an' as ye ken fine, 
 the manse fowk doesna deal wi' him,
 
 28 B "miinDow In Q:brums. 
 
 except they're wantin' short-bread. 
 He's Auld Kirk." 
 
 Leeby returned to the kitchen, and 
 Jess sat for a time ruminating. 
 
 "The lad Wilkie," she said at last, 
 triumphantly, " '11 be to bide at Law- 
 yer Ogilvy's ; but he'll be gaen to the 
 manse the morn for a tea-dinner." 
 
 "But what," asked Leeby, " aboot 
 the milk an' the cream for the law- 
 yer's ? " 
 
 " Ou, they'll be hae'n a puddin' for 
 the supper the nicht. That's a michty 
 genteel thing, I've heard." 
 
 It turned out that Jess was right in 
 every particular.
 
 prcpariiui to IReccivc Company. 29 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PREPARING TO RECEIVE COMPANY. 
 
 Leeby was at the fire brandering a 
 quarter of steak on the tongs, when 
 the house was flung into consternation 
 by Hendry's casual remark that he 
 had seen Tibbie Meahiiaker in the 
 town with her man. 
 
 "The Lord preserve's ! "' cried Leeby. 
 
 Jess looked quickly at the clock. 
 
 " Half fower ! " she said, excitedly. 
 
 "Then it canna be dune," said 
 Leeby, falling despairingly into a 
 chair, "for they may be here ony 
 meenute. " 
 
 "It's most michty," said Jess, turn- 
 ing on her husband, "'at ye should
 
 30 21 llSHin^ow in ^bruma. 
 
 tak' a pleasure in bringin" this hoose 
 to disgrace. Hoo did ye no tell's 
 suner ? " 
 
 "I fair forgot," Hendry answered, 
 *' but what's a' yer steer ? " 
 
 Jess looked at me (she often did 
 this) in a way that meant, "What a 
 man is this I'm tied to ! " 
 
 ''Steer!" she exclaimed. "Is't no 
 time we was makkin' a steer } They'll 
 be in for their tea ony meenute, an' 
 the room no sae muckle as sweepit. 
 Ay, an' me lookin' like a sweep ; an' 
 Tibbie Mealmakcr 'at's sae partikler 
 genteel seein' you sic a sicht as ye 
 are ! " 
 
 Jess shook Hendry out of his chair, 
 while Leeby began to sweep with the 
 one hand, and agitatedly to unbutton 
 her wrapper with the other. 
 
 "She didna see me," said Hendry, 
 sitting down forlornly on the table. 
 
 "Get aff that table!" cried Jess.
 
 prcpaniuj to TRcccivc Company. 31 
 
 "Sec baud o" the besom," she said to 
 Leeby. 
 
 ' ' For mercy's sake, mother, " said 
 Leeby, ''gie yer face a dicht, an' put 
 on a clean mutch." 
 
 ''I'll open the door if they come 
 afore you're ready," said Hendry, as 
 Leeby pushed him ag-ainst the dresser. 
 
 "Ye daur to speak aboot openin' 
 the door, an' you sic a mess ! " cried 
 Jess, with pins in her mouth. 
 
 "Havers! " retorted Hendry. "A 
 man canna be aye washin' at 'imsel. " 
 
 Seeing that Hendry was as much in 
 the way as myself, I invited him up- 
 stairs to the attic, whence we heard 
 Jess and Leeby upbraiding each other 
 shrilly. I was aware that the room 
 was speckless ; but for all that, Leeby 
 was turning it upside down. 
 
 "She's aye ta'en like that," Hendry 
 said to me, referring to his wife, 
 " when she's expectin' company. Ay,
 
 32 B "MinDow in ^brums. 
 
 it's a peety she canna tak things 
 cannier."' 
 
 "Tibbie Mealmaker must be some 
 one of importance ? " I asked. 
 
 "Ou, she's naething by the ord'nar' ; 
 but ye see she was mairit to a Tillie- 
 drum man no lang syne, an' they're 
 said to hae a michty grand estabhsh- 
 ment. Ay, they've a wardrobe spleet 
 new ; an' what think ye Tibbie wears 
 ilka day .? " 
 
 I shook my head. 
 
 'at was Chirsty Miller 'at put it 
 through the toon," Hendry continued. 
 "Chirsty was in Tilliedrum last Teis- 
 day or Wednesday, an' Tibbie gae her 
 a cup o' tea. Ay, weel, Tibbie telt 
 Chirsty 'at she wears hose ilka day." 
 
 "Wears hose ? " 
 
 " Ay. It's some michty grand kind 
 o' stockin'. I never heard o't in this 
 toon. Na, there's naebody in Thrums 
 'at wears hose."
 
 Iprcparfng to IReceivc Company. 33 
 
 ' * And who did Tibbie get ? " I asked ; 
 for in Thrums they say, "Wha did 
 she get ? " and '* Wha did he tak ? " 
 
 " His name's Davit Curly. Ou, a 
 crittur fu' o' maggots, an' nae great 
 match, for he's juist the Tilliedrum 
 bill-sticker."' 
 
 At this moment Jess shouted from 
 her chair (she was burnishing the so- 
 ciety teapot as she spoke), '' Mind, 
 Hendry McQumpha, 'at upon nae con- 
 dition are ye to mention the bill-stickin' 
 afore Tibbie ! " 
 
 "Tibbie," Hendry explained to me, 
 "is a terrible vain tid, an' doesna 
 think the bill-stickin' genteel. Ay, they 
 say 'at if she meets Davit in the street 
 wi' his paste-pot an' the brush in his 
 hands she pretends no to ken 'im." 
 
 Every time Jess paused to think she 
 cried up orders, such as — 
 
 " Dinna call her Tibbie, mind ye. 
 Always address her as Mistress Curly." 
 3
 
 34 
 
 B IClinDow in XTbrums. 
 
 "Shak' hands wi' baith o' them, an' 
 say ye hope they're in the enjoyment 
 o' guid health." 
 
 " Dinna put yer feet on the table." 
 
 ** Mind, you're no' to mention 'at ye 
 kent they were in the toon." 
 
 ''When onybody passes ye yer tea 
 say, 'Thank ye.'" 
 
 "Dinna stir yer tea as if ye was 
 churnin' butter, nor let on 'at the 
 scones is no our ain bakin'. " 
 
 " If Tibbie says onything aboot the 
 china yer no to say 'at we dinna use 
 it ilka day. " 
 
 "Dinna lean back in the big chair, 
 for it's broken, an' Leeby's gi'en it a 
 lick o' glue this meenute. " 
 
 " When Leeby gies ye a kick aneath 
 the table, that'll be a sign to ye to say 
 grace. " 
 
 Hendry looked at me apologetically 
 while these instructions came up. 
 
 " I winna dive my head wi' sic non-
 
 preparing to "Kcccive Company. 35 
 
 sense, " he said; ''it's no for a man 
 body to be sae crammed fu' o' man- 
 ners. " 
 
 " Come awa doon," Jess shouted to 
 him, " an' put on a clean dickey." 
 
 " I'll better do't to please her," said 
 Hendry, ''though for my ain part I 
 dinna like the feel o' a dickey on week- 
 days. Na, they mak's think it's the 
 Sabbath. " 
 
 Ten minutes afterwards I went 
 downstairs to see how the preparations 
 were prog-ressing-. Fresh muslin cur- 
 tains had been put up in the room. 
 The grand footstool, worked by Leeby, 
 was so placed that Tibbie could not 
 help seeing it ; and a fine cambric 
 handkerchief, of which Jess was very 
 proud, was hangmg out of a drawer as 
 if by accident. An antimacassar lying 
 carelessly on the seat of a chair con- 
 cealed a rent in the horse-hair, and the 
 china ornaments on the mantelpiece
 
 36 B Minnow In XTbrums. 
 
 were so placed that they looked whole. 
 Leeby's black merino was hanging 
 near the window in a good light, and 
 Jess' Sabbath bonnet, which was never 
 worn, occupied a nail beside it. The 
 tea-things stood on a tray in the kitchen 
 bed, whence they could be quickly 
 brought into the room, just as if they 
 were always ready to be used daily. 
 Leeby, as yet en deshabille, was shav- 
 ing her father at a tremendous rate, and 
 Jess, looking as fresh as a daisy, was 
 ready to receive the visitors. She was 
 peering through the tiny window-blind 
 looking for them. 
 
 "Be cautious, Leeby," Hendry was 
 saying, when Jess shook her hand 
 at him. "Wheesht," she whispered; 
 "■ they're comin'." 
 
 Hendry was hustled into his Sabbath 
 coat, and then came a tap at the door, 
 a very genteel tap. Jess nodded to 
 Leeby, who softly shoved Hendry into 
 the room.
 
 IPrepartiifl to IRcceivc Compani^. 37 
 
 The tap was repeated, but Leeby 
 pushed her father into a chair and 
 thrust Barrow's Sermons open into his 
 hand. Then she stole but the house, 
 and swiftly buttoned her wrapper, 
 speaking to Jess by nods the while. 
 There was a third knock, whereupon 
 Jess said, in a loud, Englishy voice : 
 
 "Was that not a chap (knock) at 
 the door ? " 
 
 Hendry was about to reply, but she 
 shook her fist at him. Next moment 
 Leeby opened the door. I was up- 
 stairs, but I heard Jess say : 
 
 ** Dear me, if it's not Mrs. Curly — 
 and Mr. Curly ! And hoo are ye ? 
 Come in, by. Weel, this isr iii<iep.d, 
 a pleasant surprise ! "
 
 38 B IDQlinDow In tTbrums, 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WAITING FOR THE DOCTOR. 
 
 Jess had gone early to rest, and the 
 door of her bed in the kitchen was 
 pulled to. From her window I saw 
 Hendry buying dulse. 
 
 Now and again the dulseman wheeled 
 his slimy boxes to the top of the brae, 
 and sat there stolidly on the shafts of 
 his barrow. Many passed him by, 
 but occasionally some one came to 
 rest by his side. Unless the customer 
 was loquacious, there was no bandy- 
 ing of words, and Hendry merely un- 
 buttoned his east-trouser pocket, giv- 
 ing his body the angle at which the 
 pocket could be most easily filled by 
 the dulseman. He then deposited his
 
 Maitinfl tor tbe Doctor. 39 
 
 halfpenny, and moved on. Neither 
 had spoken ; yet in the country they 
 would have roared their predictions 
 about to-morrow to a plowman half 
 a field away. 
 
 Dulse is roasted by twisting it round 
 the tongs fired to a red-heat, and the 
 house was soon heavy with the smell 
 of burning sea- weed. Leeby was at 
 the dresser munching it from a broth- 
 plate, while Hendry, on his knees at 
 the fireplace, gingerly tore off the 
 blades of dulse that were sticking to the 
 tongs, and licked his singed fingers. 
 
 "Whaur's yer mother.?" he asked 
 Leeby. 
 
 "Ou," said Leeby, ''whaur would 
 she be but in her bed ? " 
 
 Hendry took the tongs to the door, 
 and would have cleaned them himself, 
 had not Leeby (who often talked his 
 interfering ways over with her mother) 
 torn them from his hands.
 
 40 B minDow in ^brums. 
 
 " Leeby ! " cried Jess at that mo- 
 ment. 
 
 "Ay," answered Leeby, leisurely, 
 not noticing, as I happened to do, that 
 Jess spoke in an agitated voice. 
 
 ''What is't.?" asked Hendry, who 
 liked to be told things. 
 
 He opened the door of the bed. 
 
 " Yer mother's no weel," he said to 
 Leeby. 
 
 Leeby ran to the bed, and I went 
 ben the house. 
 
 In another two minutes we were a 
 group of four in the kitchen, staring va- 
 cantly. Death could not have startled 
 us more, tapping thrice that quiet night 
 on the window-pane. 
 
 "It's diphtheria!" said Jess, her 
 hands trembling as she buttoned her 
 wrapper. 
 
 She looked at me, and Leeby looked 
 at me. 
 
 " It's no, it's no ! " cried Leeby, and
 
 maitinfl tor tbe H)octor. 41 
 
 her voice was as a fist shaken at my 
 face. She blamed me for hesitating in 
 my reply. But ever since this malady 
 left me a lonely dominie for life, diph- 
 theria has been a knockdown word for 
 me. Jess had discovered a great white 
 spot on her throat. I knew the symp- 
 toms. 
 
 *'Is't dangerous.?" asked Hendry, 
 who once had a headache years before, 
 and could still refer to it as a reminis- 
 cence. 
 
 "Them 'at has 't never recovers," 
 said Jess, sitting down very quietly. 
 A stick fell from the fire, and she bent 
 forward to replace it. 
 
 ''They do recover!" cried Leeby, 
 again turning angry eyes on me. 
 
 I could not face her ; I had known 
 so many who did not recover. She put 
 her hands on her mother's shoulder. 
 
 *'Mebbe ye would be better in yer 
 bed," suggested Hendry.
 
 42 B minDow in Cbrums. 
 
 No one spoke. 
 
 "When I had the headache," said 
 Hendry, " I was better in my bed." 
 
 Leeby had taken Jess' hand — a worn 
 old hand that had many a time gone 
 out in love and kindness when younger 
 hands were cold. Poets have sung 
 and fighting men have done great 
 deeds for hands that never had such 
 a record. 
 
 "If ye could eat something," said 
 Hendry, " I would gae to the flesher's 
 for 't. I mind when I had the head- 
 ache, hoo a small steak '' 
 
 "Gae awa for the doctor, rayther," 
 broke in Leeby. 
 
 Jess started, for sufferers think there 
 is less hope for them after the doctor 
 has been called in to pronounce sen- 
 tence. 
 
 " I winna hae the doctor,"' she said, 
 anxiously. 
 
 In answer to Leeby's nods, Hendry
 
 XUaititifl tor tbc E)octor. 43 
 
 slowly pulled out his boots from 
 beneath the table, and sat looking at 
 them, preparatory to putting them on. 
 He was beginning at last to be a little 
 scared, though his face did not show 
 it. 
 
 "I winna hae ye, " cried Jess, get- 
 ting to her feet, " gaen to the doctor's 
 sic a sicht. Yer coat's a' yarn." 
 
 ''Havers," said Hendry, but Jess 
 became frantic. 
 
 I offered to go for the doctor, but 
 while I was upstairs looking for my 
 bonnet I heard the door slam. Leeby 
 had become impatient and darted off 
 herself, buttoning her jacket probably 
 as she ran. When I returned to the 
 kitchen, Jess and Hendry were still by 
 the fire. Hendry was beating a charred 
 stick into sparks, and his wife sat with 
 her hands in her lap. I saw Hendry 
 look at her once or twice, but he could 
 think of nothing to say. His terms of
 
 44 ^ MtnOow In ^brums, 
 
 endearment had died out thirty-nine 
 years before with his courtship. He 
 had forgotten the words. For his life 
 he could not have crossed over to Jess 
 and put his arm round her. Yet he 
 was uneasy. His eyes wandered 
 round the poorly-lit room. 
 
 " Will ye hae a drink o" water ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 There was a sound of footsteps out- 
 side. 
 
 "That'll be him," said Hendry in a 
 whisper. 
 
 Jess started to her feet, and told 
 Hendry to help her ben the house. 
 
 The steps died away, but I fancied 
 that Jess, now highly strung, had gone 
 into hiding, and I went after her. I 
 was mistaken. She had lit the room- 
 lamp, turning the crack in the globe 
 to the wall. The sheepskin hearth- 
 rug, which was generally carefully 
 packed away beneath the bed, had
 
 •Odaititifl tor tbe Doctor. 45 
 
 been spread out before the empty fire- 
 place, and Jess was on the arm-chair 
 hurriedly putting on her grand black 
 mutch with the pink flowers. 
 
 " I was juist makkin' mysel' respect- 
 able," she said, but without life in her 
 voice. 
 
 This was the only time I ever saw 
 her in the room. 
 
 Lceby returned panting to say that 
 the doctor might be expected in an 
 hour. He was away among the hills. 
 
 The hour passed reluctantly. Leeby 
 lit a tire ben the house, and then put 
 on her Sabbath dress. She sat with 
 her mother in the room. Never before 
 had I seen Jess sit so quietly, for her 
 way was to work until, as she said 
 herself, she was ready " to fall into her 
 bed." 
 
 Hendry wandered between the 
 rooms, always in the way when Leeby 
 ran to the window to see if that was
 
 46 B "MinDovv in ^brums. 
 
 the doctor at last. He would stand 
 gaping in the middle of the room for 
 five minutes, then slowly withdraw to 
 stand as drearily but the house. His 
 face lengthened. At last he sat down 
 by the kitchen fire, a Bible in his hand. 
 It lay open on his knee, but he did not 
 read much. He sat there with his legs 
 outstretched, looking straight before 
 him. I believe he saw Jess young 
 again. His face was very solemn, 
 and his mouth twitched. The fire sank 
 into ashes unheeded. 
 
 I sat alone at my attic window for 
 hours, waiting for the doctor. From 
 the attic I could see nearly all Thrums, 
 but, until very late, the night was dark, 
 and the brae, except immediately be- 
 fore the door, was blurred and dim. 
 A sheet of light canopied the square as 
 long as a cheap Jack paraded his goods 
 there. It was gone before the moon 
 came out. Figures tramped, tramped
 
 •QDlattina tor tbe Doctor. 47 
 
 up the brae, passed the house in 
 shadow and stole silently on. A man 
 or boy whistlini^ seemed to till the 
 valley. The moon arrived too late to 
 be of serviee to any wayfarer, l^very- 
 body in Thrums was asleep but our- 
 selves, and the doctor who never 
 came. 
 
 About midnight Hendry climbed the 
 attic stair and joined me at the win- 
 dow. His hand was shaking as he 
 pulled back the blind. I began to 
 realize that his heart could still over- 
 flow. 
 
 "She's waur, " he whispered, like one 
 who had lost his voice. 
 
 For a long time he sat silently, his 
 hand on the blind. He was so differ- 
 ent from the Hendry I had known that 
 I felt myself in the presence of a strange 
 man. His eyes were glazed with star- 
 ing at the turn of the brae where the 
 doctor must iirst come into sight. His
 
 48 B MinDow in ^brums. 
 
 breathing became heavier till it was 
 a gasp. Then I put my hand on his 
 shoulder, and he stared at me. 
 
 " Nine-and-thirty years come June/* 
 he said, speaking to himself. 
 
 For this length of time, I knew, he 
 and Jess had been married. He re- 
 peated the words at intervals. 
 
 "I mind — "he began, and stopped. 
 He was thinking of the spring-time of 
 Jess' life. 
 
 The night ended as we watched ; 
 then came the terrible moment that 
 precedes the day — the moment known 
 to shuddering watchers by sick beds, 
 when a chill wind cuts through the 
 house, and the world without seems 
 cold in death. It is as if the heart of 
 the earth did not mean to continue 
 beating. 
 
 ''This is a fearsome nicht," Hendry 
 said, hoarsely. 
 
 He turned to grope his way to the
 
 TaHaitlriQ for tbe Doctor. 49 
 
 stairs, but suddenly went down on his 
 knees to pray. . . . 
 
 There was a quick step outside. I 
 arose in time to see the doctor on the 
 brae. -He tried the latch, but Leeby 
 was there to show him in. 
 
 The door of the room closed on him. 
 
 From the top of the stair I could see 
 into the dark passage, and make out 
 Hendry shaking at the door. I could 
 hear the doctor's voice, but not the 
 words he said. There was a painful 
 silence, and then Leeby laughed joy- 
 ously. 
 
 " It's gone," cried Jess ; ''the white 
 spot's gone ! Ye juist touched it, an' 
 it's gone ! Tell Hendry." 
 
 But Hendry did not need to be told. 
 As Jess spoke I heard him say, huskily : 
 "Thank God ! " and then he tottered 
 back to the kitchen. When the doctor 
 left, Hendry was still on Jess' arm- 
 chair, trembling like a man with the 
 4
 
 50 B MinDow in ^brums. 
 
 palsy. Ten minutes afterward I was 
 preparing for bed, when he cried up 
 the stair : 
 
 "Come awa' doon." 
 
 I joined the family party in the room ; 
 Hendry was sitting close to Jess. 
 
 ''Let us read/* he said, firmly, ''in 
 the fourteenth of John."
 
 a t)umonat on bid CaUinfl. 51 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A HUMORIST OX HIS CALLING. 
 
 After the eight o'clock bell had rung, 
 Hendry occasionally crossed over to 
 the farm of T'nowhead and sat on 
 the pig-sty. If no one joined him he 
 scratched the pig, and returned home 
 gradually. Here what was almost a 
 club held informal meetings, at which 
 two or four, or even half a dozen as- 
 sembled to debate, when there was 
 any one to start them. The meetings 
 were only memorable when Tammas 
 Haggart was in fettle, to pronounce 
 judgments in his well-known sarcastic 
 way. Sometimes we had got off the 
 pig-sty to separate before Tammas was 
 properly yoked. There we might re-
 
 52 B MinDow in ^brums. 
 
 main a long time, planted round him 
 like trees, for he was a mesmerizing 
 talker. 
 
 There was a pail belonging to the 
 pig-sty, which some one would turn 
 bottom upward and sit upon if the 
 attendance was unusually numerous. 
 Tammas liked, however, to put a 
 foot on it now and again in the full 
 swing of a harangue, and when he 
 paused for a sarcasm I have seen the 
 pail kicked toward him. He had the 
 wave of the arm that is so convincing 
 in argument, and such a natural way 
 of asking questions, that an audience 
 not used to public speaking might have 
 thought he wanted them to reply. It 
 is an undoubted fact that, when he 
 went on the platform, at the time of 
 the election, to heckle the colonel, he 
 paused in the middle of his questions 
 to take a drink out of the tumbler of 
 water which stood on the table. As
 
 B Ibumorfst on bis Calling. 53 
 
 soon as they saw what he was up to, 
 the spectators raised a ringing cheer. 
 
 On concluding his perorations, Tam- 
 mas sent his snuff-mull round, but we 
 had our own way of passing him a 
 vote of thanks. One of the company 
 would express amazement at his gift of 
 words, and the others would add, 
 "Man, man," or, "■ Ye cow, Tammas," 
 or, "What a crittur ye are ! " all which 
 ejaculations meant the same thing. A 
 new subject being thus ingeniously 
 introduced, Tammas again put his foot 
 on the pail. 
 
 "I tak no creedit," he said, mod- 
 estly, on the evening, I remember, of 
 Willie Pyatt's funeral, "in bein' able 
 to speak wi' a sort o' faceelity on 
 topics 'at I've made my ain. " 
 
 "Ay," saidT'nowhead, " but it's no 
 the faceelity o' speakin' 'at taks me. 
 There's Davit Lunan 'at can speak like 
 as if he had learned it aff a paper, an' 
 yet I canna thole 'im. " ,
 
 54 B XUinDow in Cbrums. 
 
 "Davit." said Hendry, '•' doesna 
 speak in a wy 'at a body can follow 'im. 
 He doesna gae even on. Jess says 
 he's juist like a man ay at the cross- 
 roads, an' no sure o" his wy. But the 
 stock has words, an' no ilka body has 
 that' 
 
 " If I was bidden to put Tammas' 
 gift in a word, " said T'nowhead, ' • I 
 would say "at he had a wy. That's 
 what I would say." 
 
 '• Weel, I suppose I have," Tammas 
 admitted, "but, wy or no wy, I 
 couldna put a point on my words if it 
 wasna for my sense o' humor. Lads, 
 humors what gies the nip to speakin'." 
 
 " It's what makes ye a sarcesticist, 
 Tammas," said Hendry ; ''but what I 
 wonder at is yer sayin' the humorous 
 things sae aisy like. Some says ye 
 mak them up aforehand, but I ken 
 that's no true." 
 
 " Xo onlv is't no true." said Tarn-
 
 H •t)umon»t on bis Calling. 55 
 
 mas, " but it couldna be true. Them 
 'at says sic things, an* weel I ken 
 you're meanin' Davit Lunan, hasnanae 
 idea o' what humor is. It's a thing 'at 
 spouts oot o' its ain accord. Some o' 
 the maist humorous things I've ever 
 said cam oot, as a body may say, by 
 themsel's. " 
 
 "I suppose that's the case." said 
 T'nowhead, " an ' yet it maun be you 
 'at brings them up ? " 
 
 ''There's no nae doubt aboot its 
 bein' the case, " said Tammas, ' ' for I've 
 watched mysel" often. There was a 
 vara guid instance occurred sune after 
 I married Easie. The earl's son met 
 me one day, aboot that time, i' the 
 Tenements, an' he didnaken 'at Chirsty 
 was deid, an' I'd married again. 'Well, 
 Haggart,' he says, in his frank wy, 
 'and how is your wife ? ' 'She's vara 
 weel, sir,' I maks answer, 'but she's 
 no the ana you mean.' "
 
 56 B TKHinDow (n ^brums, 
 
 ''Na, he meant Chirsty," said Hen- 
 dry. 
 
 ' ' Is that a' the story ? " asked T'now- 
 head. 
 
 Tammas had been looking at us 
 queerly. 
 
 "There's no nane o' ye lauchin'/' 
 he said, "but I can assure ye the earl's 
 son gaed east the toon lauchin' like 
 onything." 
 
 * ' But what was't he lauched at ? " 
 
 "Ou," said Tammas, "a humorist 
 doesna tell whaur the humor comes in." 
 
 "No, but when you said that, did 
 ye mean it to be humorous ? " 
 
 "Am no sayin' I did, but as I've 
 been tellin' ye humor spouts oot by 
 itsel'." 
 
 "Ay, but do ye ken noo what the 
 earl's son gaed awa lauchin' at ? " 
 
 Tammas hesitated. 
 
 "I dinna exactly see't," he con- 
 fessed, "but that's no an oncommon
 
 B Ibumorfst on bl6 CalUiiQ. 57 
 
 thing. A humorist would often no ken 
 'at he was ane if it wasna by the wy 
 he maks other fowk lauch. A body 
 canna be expeckit baith to mak the 
 joke an' to see't. Na, that would be 
 doin' twa fowks' wark. " 
 
 **Weel, that's reasonable enough, 
 but I've often seen ye lauchinV' said 
 Hendry, " lang afore other fowk 
 lauched. " 
 
 "Nae doubt," Tammas explained, 
 *' an' that's because humor has twa 
 sides, juist like a penny-piece. When 
 I say a humorous thing mysel' I'm 
 dependent on other fowk to tak note o' 
 the humor o't, bein' mysel' ta'en up wi' 
 the makkin' o't. Ay, but- there's things 
 I see an' hear 'at maks me lauch, an' 
 that's the other side o' humor. " 
 
 "I never heard it put sae plain 
 afore," said T'nowhead, " an', sal, am 
 no nana sure but what am a humorist 
 too."
 
 58 B TKHin^ow in Q:brums. 
 
 ''Na, na, no you, T'nowhead/* said 
 Tammas hotly. 
 
 '' Weel," continued the farmer, ''I 
 never set up for bein' a humorist, but 
 I can juist assure ye 'at I lauch at 
 queer things too. No lang syne I 
 woke up i' my bed lauchin' like ony- 
 thing, an' Lisbeth thocht I wasna weel. 
 It was something I dreamed 'at made 
 me lauch ; I couldna think what it 
 was, but I lauched richt. Was that 
 no fell like a humorist ? " 
 
 " That was neither here nor there," 
 said Tammas. *'Na, dreams dinna 
 coont, for we're no responsible for 
 them. Ay, an' what's mair, the mere 
 lauchin's no the important side o' 
 humor, even though ye hinna to be telt 
 to lauch. The important side's the 
 other side, the sayin' the humorous 
 things. I'll tell ye what : the humor- 
 ist's like a man firin' at a target — he 
 doesna ken whether he hits or no till 
 them at the target tells 'im."
 
 B tJumoriet on bis CaUlno. 59 
 
 *'l would be of opeenion," said 
 Hendry, who was one of Tammas' 
 most stanch admirers, "'at another 
 mark o' the rale humorist was his 
 seein' humor in all things?" 
 
 Tammas shook his head — a way he 
 had when Hendry advanced theories. 
 
 "I dinna haud wi' that ava," he 
 said. ' ' I ken fine 'at Davit Lunan 
 gaes aboot sayin' he sees humor in 
 everything, but there's nae surer sign 
 'at he's no a genuine humorist. Na, 
 the rale humorist kens vara weel 'at 
 there's subjects withoot a spark o' 
 humor in them. When a subject rises 
 to the sublime it should be regairded 
 philosophically, an' no humorously. 
 Davit would lauch at the grandest 
 thochts, whaur they only fill the true 
 humorist wi* awe. I've found it neces- 
 sary to rebuke ' im at times whaur his 
 lauchin' was oot o' place. He pre- 
 tended aince on this vara spot to see 
 humor i' the origin o' cock-fightin'."
 
 6o B MinDow in ^brums. 
 
 ''Did he, man?" said Hendry; 
 '* I wasna here. But what is the origin 
 o' cock-fechtin' ? " 
 
 "It was a' i' the Cheap Magazine,"" 
 said T'nowhead. 
 
 ' ' Was I sayin' it wasna ? " demanded 
 Tammas. " It was through me read- 
 in' the account oot o' the Cheap Maga- 
 zine "at the discussion arose. " 
 
 " But what said the Cheapy was the 
 origin o' cock-fechtin' } " 
 
 " T'nowhead '11 tell ye," answered 
 Tammas ; "he says I dinna ken." 
 
 "I never said naething o' the kind," 
 returned T'nowhead, indignantly; "I 
 mind o' ye readin' 't oot fine." 
 
 "Ay, weel," said Tammas, "that's 
 a' richt. Ou, the origin o' cock-fight- 
 in' gangs back to the time o' the Greek 
 wars, a thoosand or twa years syne, 
 mair or less. There was ane, Mil- 
 tiades by name, 'at was the captain o' 
 the Greek army, an' one day he led
 
 B "toumonst on bis Calling. 6i 
 
 them doon the mountains to attack 
 the biggest army 'at was ever gathered 
 thegither. " 
 
 "They were Persians," interposed 
 T'nowhead. 
 
 "Are you teUin' the story, or am I ? " 
 asked Tammas. " I kent fine 'at they 
 were Persians. Weel, Miltiades had 
 the matter o' twenty thoosand men 
 wi' 'im, and when they got to the foot 
 o' the mountain, behold there was two 
 cocks fechtin'." 
 
 "Man, man," said Hendry, "an' 
 was there cocks in thae days ? " 
 
 " Ondoubtedly," said Tammas, " or 
 hoo could thae twa ha'e been fecht- 
 in' ? " 
 
 "Ye have me there, Tammas," ad- 
 mitted Hendry. " Ye're perfectly 
 richt. " 
 
 "Ay, then," continued the stone- 
 breaker, "when Miltiades saw the 
 cocks at it wi' all their micht, he
 
 62 B WinDow in Cbrums. 
 
 stopped the army and addressed it. 
 * Behold ! ' he cried, at the top o' his 
 voice, ' these cocks do not fight for 
 their household gods, nor for the monu- 
 ments of their ancestors, nor for glory, 
 nor for liberty, nor for their children, 
 but only because the one will not give 
 way unto the other. ' " 
 
 "It was nobly said," declared Hen- 
 dry; "na, cocks wouldna hae sae 
 muckle understandin' as to fecht for 
 thae things. I wouldna wonder but 
 what it was some laddies 'at set them 
 at ane another. " 
 
 "Hendry doesna see what INIiltydes 
 was after," said T'nowhead. 
 
 "YeVe ta'en't up wrang, Hendry," 
 Tammas explained. "What ^Nliltiades 
 meant was 'at if cocks could fecht sae 
 weel oot o' mere deviltry, surely the 
 Greeks would fecht terrible for their 
 gods an' their bairns an' the other 
 things."
 
 B "bumorist on bie Callinfl. 63 
 
 "I see, I see; but what was the 
 monuments o' their ancestors ? " 
 
 " Ou, that was the gravestanes they 
 put up i' their kirkyards." 
 
 * ' I wonder the other billies would 
 want to tak them awa. They would 
 be a michty wecht. " 
 
 *'Ay, but they wanted them, an' 
 nat'rally the Greeks stuck to the stanes 
 they paid for. " 
 
 "So, so, an' did Davit Lunan mak 
 cot' at there was humor in that ? "' 
 
 "He do so. He said it was a hu- 
 morous thing to think o' a hale army 
 lookin' on at twa cocks fechtin'. I 
 assure ye I telt 'im 'at I saw nae humor 
 in't. It was ane o' the most impres- 
 sive sichts ever seen by man, an' the 
 Greeks was sac inspired by what I\Iilti- 
 ades said 'at they sweepit the Persians 
 oot o' their country."' 
 
 We all agreed that Tammas' was the 
 genuine humor.
 
 64 B IllIlinDow In ^brums. 
 
 **An' an enviable possession it is," 
 said Hendry. 
 
 * 'In a wy," admitted Tammas, *'but 
 no in a' wys." 
 
 He hesitated, and then added in a 
 low voice : 
 
 "As sure as death, Hendry, it some- 
 times taks grip o' me i' the kirk itsel', 
 an' I can hardly keep frae lauchin'. "
 
 DeaD tbis ^wcnt^ HJears, 65 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 DEAD THIS TWENTY YEARS. 
 
 In the lustiness of youth there are 
 many who cannot feel that they, too, 
 will die. The first fear stops the heart. 
 Even then they would keep death at 
 arm's length by making believe to dis- 
 own him. Loved ones are taken away, 
 and the boy, the girl, will not speak of 
 them, as if that made the conqueror's 
 triumph the less. In time the fire in 
 the breast burns low, and then, in the 
 last glow of the embers, it is sweeter 
 to hold what has been than to think of 
 what may be. 
 
 Twenty years had passed since Joey 
 ran down the brae to play. Jess, his 
 mother, shook her staff fondly at him. 
 
 5
 
 66 B MinDow in ^brums. 
 
 A cart rumbled by, the driver nodding 
 on the shaft. It rounded the corner 
 and stopped suddenly, and then a 
 woman screamed. A handful of men 
 carried Joey's dead body to his mother, 
 and that was the tragedy of Jess' life. 
 
 Twenty years ago, and still Jess sat 
 at the window, and still she heard that 
 woman scream. Every other living 
 being had forgotten Joey ; even to 
 Hendry he was now scarcely a name, 
 but there were times when Jess" face 
 quivered and her old arms went out for 
 her dead boy. 
 
 ' ' God's will be done, " she said, ' ' but 
 oh, I grudged Him my bairn terrible 
 sair. I dinna want him back noo, an' 
 ilka day is takkin' me nearer to him, 
 but for mony a lang year I grudged 
 him sair, sair. He was juist five min- 
 utes gone, an' they brocht him back 
 deid, my Joey." 
 
 On the Sabbath day Jess could not
 
 DcaD tbi0 Zwcnt^ l^ears. 67 
 
 go to church, and it was then, I think, 
 that she was with Joey most. There 
 was often a blessed serenity on her face, 
 when we returned, that only comes to 
 those who have risen from their knees 
 with their prayers answered. Then 
 she was very close to the boy who 
 died. Long ago she could not look 
 out from her window upon the brae, 
 but now it was her seat in church. 
 There on the Sabbath evenings she 
 sometimes talked to me of Joey. 
 
 ''Its been a tine day," she would 
 say, " juist like that day. I thank the 
 Lord for the sunshine noo, but oh, I 
 thocht at the time I couldna look at 
 the sun shinin' again." 
 
 "In all Thrums," she has told me, 
 and I know it to be true, "there's no 
 a better man than Hendry. There's 
 them 'at's cleverer in the wys o' the 
 world, but my man, Hendry ^Mc- 
 Qumpha, never did naething in all his
 
 68 B MtnDow In ^brums. 
 
 life 'at wasna weel intended, an' though 
 his words is common, it's to the Lord 
 he looks. I canna think but what 
 Hendry's pleasin' to God. Oh, I dinna 
 ken what to say wi' thankfulness to 
 him when I mind hoo guid he's been 
 to me. There's Leeby 'at I couldna 
 hae done withoot, me bein' sae silly 
 (weak bodily), an' ay Leeby's stuck 
 by me an' gien up her life, as ye micht 
 say, for me. Jamie " 
 
 But then Jess sometimes broke 
 down. 
 
 "He's so far awa," she said, after 
 a time, " an' aye when he gangs back 
 to London after his holidays he has a 
 fear he'll never see me again, but he's 
 terrified to mention it, an' I juist ken 
 by the wy he taks haud o' me, an' 
 comes runnin' back to tak' haud o' me 
 again. I ken fine what he's thinkin/ 
 but I daurna speak. 
 
 "Guid is no word for what Jamie
 
 DeaD tbis Zwcnt^s l^cars. 69 
 
 has been to me, but he wasna born 
 till after Joey died. When we got 
 Jamie, Hendry took to whistlin' again 
 at the loom, an' Jamie juist filled Joey's 
 place to him. Ay, but naebody could 
 fill Joey's place to me. It's different 
 to a man. A bairn's no the same to 
 him, but a fell bit o' me was buried in 
 my laddie's grave. 
 
 ''Jamie an' Joey was never nane 
 the same nature. It was aye some- 
 thing in a shop, Jamie wanted to be, 
 an' he never cared muckle for his 
 books, but Joey hankered after being 
 a minister, young as he was, an' a 
 minister Hendry an' me would hae 
 done our best to mak' him. Mony, 
 mony a time after he came in frae the 
 kirk on the Sabbath he would stand up 
 at this very window and wave his 
 hands in a reverent way, juist like 
 the minister. His first text was to be 
 *Thou God seest me.'
 
 70 B llCllnDow in ^brume. 
 
 " Ye'll wonder at me, but I've sat 
 here in the lang fore-nichts dreamin' 
 'at Joey was a grown man noo, an' 
 'at I was puttin' on my bonnet to come 
 to the kirk to hear him preach. Even 
 as far back as twenty years an' mair I 
 wasna able to gang aboot, but Joey 
 would say to me, ' We'll get a carriage 
 to ye, mother, so 'at ye can come and 
 hear me preach on "Thou God seest 
 me. " ' He would say to me, ' It 
 doesna do, mother, for the minister in 
 the pulpit to nod to ony o' the fowk, 
 but I'll gie ye a look an' ye'll ken it's 
 me.' Oh, Joey, I would hae gien you 
 a look too, an' ye would hae kent 
 what I was thinkin'. He often said, 
 * Ye'll be proud o' me, will ye no, 
 mother, when ye see me comin' sailin' 
 alang to the pulpit in my gown ? ' So 
 I would hae been proud o' him, an' I 
 was proud to hear him speakin' o't. 
 'The other fowk,' he said, 'will be
 
 2)caC) tbis Zxccnt^ ll)car6. 71 
 
 sittin' in their seats wonderin' what 
 my text's to be, but you'll ken, mother, 
 an' you'll turn up to " Thou God seest 
 me," afore I gie oot the chapter/ Ay, 
 but that day he was coffined, for all 
 the minister prayed, I found it hard to 
 say 'Thou God seest me.' Its the 
 text I like best noo, though, an' when 
 Hendry an' Leeby is at the kirk, I turn't 
 up often, often in the Bible. I read 
 frae the begin nin' o' the chapter, but 
 when I come to 'Thou God seest me,' 
 I stop. Na, it's no 'at there's ony 
 rebellion to the Lord in my heart noo, 
 for I ken He was lookin' doon when 
 the cart gaed owcr Joey, an' He 
 wanted to tak' my laddie to Himsel'. 
 But juist when I come to ' Thou God 
 seest me,' I let the book lie in my lap, 
 for aince a body's sure o' that they're 
 sure o' all. Ay, ye'll laugh, but I 
 think, mebbe juist because I w^as his 
 mother, 'at though Joey never lived
 
 72 B MinDow in ^brums. 
 
 to preach in a kirk, he's preached frae 
 'Thou God seest me' to me. I dinna 
 ken 'at I would ever hae been sae sure 
 o' that if it hadna been for him, an' so 
 I think I see 'im sailin' doon to the 
 pulpit juist as he said he would do. I 
 see him gien me the look he spoke o' 
 — ay, he looks my wy first, an' I ken 
 it's him. Naebody sees him but me, 
 but I see him gien me the look he 
 promised. He's so terrible near me, 
 an' him dead, 'at when my time comes 
 I'll be rale willin' to go. I dinna say 
 that to Jamie, because he all trembles ; 
 but I'm auld noo, an' I'm no nane loth 
 to gang." 
 
 Jess' staff probably had a history be- 
 fore it became hers, for, as known to 
 me, it was always old and black. If 
 we studied them sufficiently we might 
 discover that staves age perceptibly 
 just as the hair turns gray. At the 
 risk of being thought fanciful I dare
 
 DeaD tbis Cvvents HJears. 73 
 
 to say that in inanimate objects, as 
 in ourselves, there is honorable and 
 shameful old age, and that to me Jess' 
 staff was a symbol of the good, the 
 true. It rested against her in the win- 
 dow, and she was so helpless with- 
 out it when on her feet, that to those 
 who saw much of her it was part of 
 herself. The staff was very short, 
 nearly a foot having been cut, as I 
 think she once told me herself, from 
 the original, of which to make a 
 porridge thieval (or stick with which 
 to stir porridge), and in moving Jess 
 leant heavily on it. Had she stood 
 erect it would not have touched the 
 floor. This was the staff that Jess 
 shook so joyfully at her boy the fore- 
 noon in May when he ran out to 
 his death. Joey, however, was as- 
 sociated in Jess' memory with her 
 staff in less painful ways. When she 
 spoke of him she took the dwarf of a
 
 74 21 'WainDovv in ^brums. 
 
 staff in her hands and looked at it 
 softly. 
 
 ''It's hard to me," she would say, 
 "to believe 'at tvva an' twenty years 
 hae come and gone since the nicht 
 Joey hod (hid) my staff. Ay, but 
 Hendry was straucht in thae days by 
 what he is noo, an' Jamie wasna born. 
 Twa an' twenty years come the back 
 end o' the year, an' it wasna thocht 
 'at I could live through the winter. 
 ' Ye'll no last mair than anither month, 
 Jess,' was what my sister Bell said, 
 when she came to see me, and yet 
 here I am aye sittin' at my window, 
 an' Bell's been i' the kirkyard this 
 dozen years. 
 
 " Leeby was saxteen month younger 
 than Joey, an' mair quiet like. Her 
 heart was juist set on helpin' aboot the 
 hoose, an' though she was but fower 
 year auld she could kindle the fire an' 
 red up (clean up) the room. Leeby's
 
 B)ea& tbis ^went^ Itjears. 75 
 
 been my savin' ever since she was 
 fovver year auld. Ay, but it was Joey 
 'at hung about me maist, an' he took 
 notice 'at I wasna gaen out as I used to 
 do. Since sune after my marriage I've 
 needed the stick, but there was days 
 'at I could gang across the road an' sit 
 on a stane. Joey kent there was some- 
 thing wrang when I had to gie that up, 
 an' syne he noticed 'at I couldna even 
 gang to the window unless Hendry 
 kind o' carried me. Na, ye wouldna 
 think 'at there could hae been days 
 when Hendry did that, but he did. 
 He was a sort o' ashamed if ony o' the 
 neighbors saw him so affectionate like, 
 but he was terrible ta'en up aboot me. 
 His loom was doon at T'nowhead's, 
 Bell's father's, an' often he cam awa 
 up to see if I was ony better. He 
 didna lat on to the other weavers 'at 
 he was comin' to see what like I was. 
 Na, he juist said he'd forgotten a pirn.
 
 76 B Minnow in c:brum5. 
 
 or his cruizey lamp, or onything. Ah, 
 but he didna mak nae pretense o' no 
 carin' for me aince he was inside the 
 hoose. He came crawHn' to the bed 
 no to wauken me if I was sleepin', an' 
 mony a time I made belief 'at I was, 
 juist to please him. It was an awfu' 
 business on him to hae a young wife 
 sae helpless, but he wasna the man to 
 cast that at me. I mind o' sayin' to 
 him one day in my bed, ' Ye made a 
 poor bargain, Hendry, when ye took 
 me.' But he says, 'Not one soul in 
 Thrums '11 daur say that to me but 
 yoursel', Jess. Na, na, my dawty, 
 you're the wuman o' my choice ; there's 
 juist one woman i' the warld to me, 
 an' that's you, myainjess.' Twa an' 
 twenty years syne. Ay, Hendry called 
 me fond like names, thae no everyday 
 names. What a straucht man he was ! 
 "The doctor had said he could do 
 no more for me, an' Hendry was the
 
 DeaD tbl6 ^wcnt^ lL)car5. 77 
 
 only ane 'at didna gie me up. The 
 bairns, of course, didna understan', 
 and Joey would come into the bed an' 
 play on the top o' me. Hendry would 
 hae t'a'en him awa, but I liked to hae 
 'im. Ye see, we was lang married 
 afore we had a bairn, an' though I 
 couldna bear ony other weight on me, 
 Joey didna hurt me, somehoo. I liked 
 to hae 'im so close to me. 
 
 " It was through that 'at he came to 
 bury my staff. I couldna help often 
 thinkin' o' what like the hoose would 
 be when I was gone, an' aboot Leeby 
 an' Joey left so young. So, when I 
 could say it without greetin', I said to 
 Joey 'at I was goin' far awa, an' would 
 he be a terrible guid laddie to his 
 father and Leeby when I was gone? 
 He aye juist said, * Dinna gang, 
 mother, dinna gang,' but one day 
 Hendry came in frae his loom, and 
 says Joey, 'Father, whaur's my
 
 78 B 'OIlmDow in ITbrums. 
 
 mother gaen to, awa frae us ? ' I'll 
 never forget Hendry's face. His 
 mooth juist opened an' shut twa or 
 three times, an' he walked quick ben 
 to the room. I cried oot to him to 
 come back, but he didna come, so I 
 sent Joey for him. Joey came runnin' 
 back to me sayin', ' Mother, mother, 
 am awfu' fleid (frightened), for my 
 father's greetin' sair.' 
 
 ''A' thae things took a hand o' Joey, 
 an' he ended in gien us a fleg (fright). 
 I was sleepin' ill at the time, an' Hen- 
 dry was ben sleepin' in the room wi' 
 Leeby, Joey bein' wi me. Ay, weel, 
 one nicht I woke up in the dark an' 
 put oot my hand to 'im, an' he wasna 
 there. I sat up wi' a terrible start, an' 
 syne I kent by the cauld 'at the door 
 maun be open. I cried oot quick to 
 Hendry, but he was a soond sleeper, 
 an' he didna hear me. Ay, I dinna 
 ken hoo I did it, but I got ben to the
 
 DcaD tbis ^wcnts Ueara. 79 
 
 room an' I shook him up. I was near 
 daft wi' fear when I saw Leeby wasna 
 there either. Hendry couldna tak" it 
 in a' at aince, but sune he liad his 
 trousers on, an' he made mo He down 
 on his bed. He said he wouldna 
 move till I did it. or I wouldna hae 
 dune it. As sune as he was oot o' the 
 hoose crying- their names I sat up in 
 my bed listenin'. Sune I heard speak- 
 in', an' in a minute Leeby comes run- 
 nin' in to me, roarin' an' greetin'. 
 She was barefeeted, and had juist her 
 nichtgown on, an' her teeth was chat- 
 terin'. I took her into the bed, but it 
 was an hour afore she could tell me 
 onything, she was in sic a state. 
 
 "Sune after Hendry came in car- 
 ry in' Joey. Joey was as naked as 
 Leeby, and as cauld as lead, but he 
 wasna greetin'. Instead o' that he 
 was'awfu' satisfied like, and for all 
 Hendry threatened to lick him he
 
 8o TlCllnDow In ^brums* 
 
 wouldna tell what he an' Leeby had 
 been doin'. He says, though, says 
 he, 'Ye'll no gang awa noo, mother; 
 no, ye'll bide noo.' My bonny laddie, 
 I didna fathom him at the time. 
 
 " It was Leeby 'at I got it frae. Ye 
 see, Joey had never seen megaen ony 
 gait withoot my staff, an' he thocht if 
 he hod it I wouldna be able to gang 
 awa. Ay, he planned it all oot, 
 though he was but a bairn, an' lay 
 watchin' me in my bed till I fell asleep. 
 Syne he creepit oot o' the bed, an' got 
 the staff, and gaed ben for Leeby. 
 She was fleid, but he said it was the 
 only wy to mak me 'at I couldna gang 
 awa. It was juist ower there whaur 
 thae cabbages is 'at he dug the hole 
 wi' a spade, an' buried the staff. Hen- 
 d1"y dug it up next mornin'."
 
 XLbc Statement ot (Tibbie JSirae. 8i 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE STATEMENT OF TIBBIE BIRSE. 
 
 On a Thursday Pete Lownie was 
 buried, and when Hendry returned 
 from the funeral Jess asked if Davit 
 Lunan had been there. 
 
 **Na,"said Hendry, who was shut 
 up in the closet-bed, taking off his 
 blacks, "I heard tell he wasna bid- 
 den. ■' 
 
 *'Yea, yea, "said Jess, nodding to 
 me significantly. "Ay, weel, ' she 
 added, " we'll be hae'n Tibbie ower 
 here on Saturday to deve's (weary us) 
 to death aboot it." 
 
 Tibbie, Davit's wife, was sister to 
 INIarget, Pete's widow, and she gen- 
 erally did visit Jess on Saturday night 
 6
 
 82 B TKIlinDow in ^brums. 
 
 to talk about Marget, who was fast 
 becomins: one o' the most fashionable 
 persons in Thrums. Tibbie was hope- 
 lessly plebeian. She was none o' your 
 proud kind, and if I entered the kitchen 
 when she was there she pretended not 
 to see me, so that, if I chose, I might 
 escape without speaking to the like of 
 her. I always grabbed her hand, how- 
 ever in a frank way. 
 
 On Saturday Tibbie made her ap- 
 pearance. From the rapidity of her 
 walk, and the way she was sucking 
 in her mouth, I knew that she had 
 strange things to unfold. She had 
 pinned a gray shawl about her shoul- 
 ders and wore a black mutch over her 
 dangling gray curls. 
 
 "It's you, Tibbie," I heard Jess say, 
 as the door opened. 
 
 Tibbie did not knock, not consider- 
 ing herself grand enough for cere- 
 mony, and indeed Jess would have
 
 Xlbc statement ot Nibble JBirse. S;^ 
 
 resented her knocking. On the other 
 hand, when Leeby visited Tibbie, she 
 knocked as politely as if she were col- 
 lecting for the precentor's present. 
 All this showed that we were superior 
 socially to Tibbie. 
 
 "Ay, hoo are ye, Jess.?" Tibbie 
 said. 
 
 "^luckle aboot it," answered Jess ; 
 **juist aff an' on ; ay, an' hoo hae ye 
 been yersel' ? " 
 
 *'0u," said Tibbie. 
 
 I wish I could write " ou " as Tibbie 
 said it. \\'ith her it was usually a sen- 
 tence in itself. Sometimes it was a 
 mere bark, again it expressed indigna- 
 tion, surprise, rapture ; it might be a 
 check upon emotion or a way of lead- 
 ing up to it, and often it lasted for half 
 a minute. In this instance it was, I 
 should say, an intimation that if Jess 
 was ready Tibbie would begin. 
 
 " So Pete Lownie's gone," said Jess,
 
 84 21 llClinDow in ^brums. 
 
 whom I could not see from ben the 
 house. I had a good glimpse of Tib- 
 bie, however, through the open door- 
 way. She had the arm-chair on the 
 south side, as she would have said, of 
 the fireplace. 
 
 "He's awa," assented Tibbie prim- 
 
 ly. 
 
 I heard the lid of the kettle dancing, 
 and then came a prolonged "ou". 
 Tibbie bent forward to whisper, and if 
 she had anything terrible to tell I was 
 glad of that, for when she whispered 
 I heard her best. For a time only 
 a murmur of words reached me, dis- 
 tant music with an " ou " now and 
 again that fired Tibbie as the beating 
 of his drum may rouse the martial 
 spirit of a drummer. At last our vis- 
 itor broke into an agitated whisper, 
 and it was only when she stopped 
 whispering, as she did now and again, 
 that I ceased to hear her. Jess evi-
 
 XLbc statement ot Cribble JBirse. 85 
 
 dently put a question at times, but so 
 politely (for she had on her best wrap- 
 per) that I diti not catch a word. 
 
 ''Though I should be struck deid 
 this nicht," Tibbie whispered, and the 
 sibilants hissed between her few re- 
 maining teeth, "I wasna sae muckle 
 as speired to the layin' oot. There 
 was Mysy Cruickshanks there, an' 
 Kitty Wobster 'at was nae friends to 
 the corpse to speak o', but INIarget 
 passed by me, mc 'at is her ain flesh 
 an' blood, though it mayna be for the 
 like o' me to say it. It's gospel truth, 
 Jess, I tell ye, when I say 'at for all I 
 ken officially, as ye micht say, Pete 
 Lownie may be weel and hearty this 
 day. If I was to meet Marget in the 
 face I couldna say he was deid, 
 though I ken 'at the wricht coftined 
 him ; na, an' what's mair, I wouldna 
 gie Marget the satisfaction o' hearin' 
 me say it. No, Jess, I tell ye, I dinna
 
 S6 B 'ailln&ow in XTbrums, 
 
 pretend to be on an equalty wi' Mar- 
 get, but equalty or no equalty, a body 
 has her feelings, an' lat on 'at I ken 
 Pete's gone I will not. Eh ? Ou, 
 weel. . . . 
 
 '*Na faags a; na, na. I ken my 
 place better than to gang near Marget. 
 I dinna deny 'at she's grand by me, 
 and her keeps a bakehoose o' her ain, 
 an' glad am I to see her doin' sae 
 weel, but let me tell ye this, Jess, 
 'Pride goeth before a fall' Yes, it 
 does, it's Scripture ; ay, it's nae mak- 
 up o' mine, it's Scripture. And this I 
 will say, though kennin' my place, 'at 
 Davit Lunan is as dainty a man as is 
 in Thrums, an' there's no one 'at's bet- 
 ter behaved at a bural, being particu- 
 larly wise-like (presentable) in's blacks, 
 an' them spleet new. Na, na, Jess, 
 Davit may hae his faults an' tak' a 
 dram at times like anither, but he 
 would shame naebody at a bural, an*
 
 Xlbc Statement ot Tibbie JSiree. 87 
 
 Marget tlcleeberately insulted him, no 
 speirin' him to Pete's. What's mair, 
 when the minister cried in to see me 
 yesterday, an' me on the floor washin', 
 says he, * So Marget's lost her man,' 
 an' I said, ' Say ye so, na ? ' for let on 
 'at I kent, and neither me at the lay- 
 ing oot nor Davit Lunan at the 
 funeral, I would not. 
 
 "'Davit should hae gone to the 
 funeral, ' says the minister, ' for I doubt 
 not he was only omitted in the invita- 
 tions by a mistake. ' 
 
 ''Ay, it was weel meant, but says I, 
 Jess, says I, ' As lang as am livin' to 
 tak chairge o' 'im, Davit Lunan gangs 
 to nae burals 'at he's no bidden to. 
 An' I tell ye,' I says to the minister, 
 ' if there was one body 'at had a richt 
 to be at the bural o' Pete Lownie, it 
 was Davit Lunan, him bein' my man 
 an' Marget my ain sister. Yes,' says 
 I, though am no o* the boastin' kind.
 
 88 B MinDow in ^brume. 
 
 ' Davit had maist richt to be there next 
 to Pete 'imsel'. Ou, Jess. . . . 
 
 "This is no a maiter I like to speak 
 aboot ; na, I dinna care to mention it, 
 but the neighbors is nat'rally taen up 
 aboot it, and Chirsty Tosh was sayin' 
 what I would wager 'at Marget hadna 
 sent the minister to hint 'at Davit's 
 bein' over-lookit in the invitations was 
 juist an accident? Losh, losh, Jess, to 
 think 'at a woman could hae the michty 
 assurance to mak a tool o' the very 
 minister ! But, sal, as far as that 
 gangs, Marget would do it, an' gae 
 twice to the kirk next Sabbath, too ; 
 but if she thinks she's to get ower me 
 like that, she taks me for a bigger fule 
 than I tak her for. Na, na, Marget, 
 ye dinna draw my leg (deceive me). 
 Ou, no. . . . 
 
 " Mind ye, Jess, I hae no desire to 
 be friends wi' Marget. Naething could 
 be farrer frae my wish than to hae
 
 ZTbe Statement ot Tibbie JSfrse. 89 
 
 helpit in the layin' oot o' Pete Lownie, 
 an' I assure ye. Davit wasna keen to 
 gang to the bural ' If they dinna 
 want me to their burals,' Davit says, 
 
 * they hae nae mair to do than to say 
 sae. But I warn ye, Tibbie,' he says, 
 
 * if there's a bural, frae this hoose, be 
 it your bural, or be it my bural, not 
 one o' the family o' Lownies casts their 
 shadows upon the corp. ' Thae was 
 the very words Davit said to me as we 
 watched the hearse frae the skylicht. 
 Ay, he bore up wonderfu', but he felt 
 it, Jess — he felt it, as I could tell by 
 his takin' to drink again that very nicht. 
 Jess, Jess. . . . 
 
 " Marget's getting waur an' waur? 
 Ay, ye may say so, though I'll say 
 naething agin her mysel'. Of coorse am 
 no on equalty wi' her, especially since 
 she had the bell put up in her hoose. 
 Ou, I hinna seen it mysel', na, I never 
 gang near the hoose, an', as mony a
 
 9o 21 TKainDow In tTbrums. 
 
 body can tell ye, when I do hae to 
 gang that wy I mak my feet my friend. 
 Ay, but as I was sayin', Marget's sae 
 grand noo 'at she has a bell in the 
 hoose. As I understan', there's a rope 
 in the wast room, an' when ye pu' it 
 a bell rings in the east room. Weel, 
 when Marget has company at their tea 
 in the wast room, an' they need mair 
 watter or scones or onything, she rises 
 an' rings the bell. Syne Jean, the 
 auldest lassie, gets up frae the table 
 an' lifts the jug or the plates an' gaes 
 awa ben to the east room for what's 
 wanted. Ay, it's a wy o' doin' 'at's 
 juist like the gentry, but I'll tell ye, 
 Jess, Pete juist fair hated the soond 
 o' that bell, an' there's them 'at says 
 it was the death o' 'im. To think 
 o' Marget ha'en sic an establish- 
 ment ! . . . 
 
 "Na, I hinna seen the mournin', 
 I've heard o't. Na, if Marget doesna
 
 Zbc Statement ot Nibble JBirse. 91 
 
 tell me naething, am no the kind to 
 speir naething, an' though I'll be at 
 the kirk the morn, I winna turn my 
 held to look at the mournin'. But it's 
 fac as death I ken frae Janet Mc- 
 Quhatty'at the bonnet's a' crape, an' 
 three' yairds o' crape on the dress, the 
 which Marget calls a costume. . . . 
 Ay, I wouldna wonder but what it was 
 hale watter the morn, for it looks 
 michty like rain, an' if it is it'll serve 
 Marget richt, an' mebbe bring doon 
 her pride a wee. No 'at I want to see 
 her humbled, for, in coorse, she's grand 
 by the Hke o' me. Ou, but ..."
 
 92 21 TlClinDow in ^brums. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A CLOAK WITH BEADS. 
 
 On week-days the women who pass- 
 ed the window were meagerly dressed ; 
 mothers in draggled winsey gowns, 
 carrying infants that were armfuls of 
 grandeur. The Sabbath clothed every 
 one in her best, and then the women 
 went by with their hands spread out. 
 When I was with Hendry cloaks with 
 beads were the fashion, and Jess sigh- 
 ed as she looked at them. They were 
 known in Thrums as the Eleven and 
 a Bits (threepenny bits), that being 
 their price at Kyowowy's on the square. 
 Kyowowy means finicky, and applied 
 to the draper by general consent. 
 No doubt it was very characteristic to
 
 B Cloak witb JBcaDs. 
 
 93 
 
 call the cloaks by their market value. 
 In the glen my scholars still talk of 
 their school-books as the tupenny, the 
 fowerpenny, thesaxpenny. They fin- 
 ish their education with the tenpenny. 
 Jess' opportunity for handling the 
 garments that others of her sex could 
 finger in shops was when she had 
 guests to tea. Persons who merely 
 dropped in and remained to tea got 
 their meal, as a rule, in the kitchen. 
 They had nothing on that Jess could 
 not easily take in as she talked to them. 
 But when they came by special invita- 
 tion the meal was served in the room, 
 the guests' things being left on the 
 kitchen-bed. Jess not being able to 
 go ben the house, had to be left with 
 the things. When the time to go 
 arrived, these were found on the bed, 
 just as they had been placed there, 
 but Jess could now tell Leeby whether 
 they were imitation, why Bell Elshion-
 
 94 ^ liSIlinDow in c;brum0. 
 
 er's feather went far round the bonnet, 
 and Chirsty Lownie's reason for al- 
 ways holding her left arm fast against 
 her side when she went abroad in the 
 black jacket. Ever since My Hobart's 
 eleven and a bit was left on the kitchen 
 bed Jess had hungered for a cloak with 
 beads. My's was the very marrows 
 of the one T'nowhead's wife got in 
 Dundee for ten-and-sixpence ; indeed, 
 we would have thoug^ht that 'Lisbeth's 
 also came from Kyowowy s had not 
 Sanders Elshioner's sister seen her go 
 into the Dundee shop with T'nowhead 
 (who was loth), and hung about to 
 discover what she was after. 
 
 Hendry was not quick at reading 
 faces like Tammas Haggart, but the 
 wistful look on Jess' face when there 
 was talk of eleven and a bits had its 
 meaning for him. 
 
 "They're grand to look at, no 
 doubt," I have heard him say to Jess,
 
 B Cloal? witb J6caC>3. 95 
 
 ** but they're richt annoyin'. That new 
 wife o' Peter Dickie's had anc on in the 
 kirk last Sabbath, an' wi' her sittin' 
 juist afore us I couldna listen to the 
 sermon for tryin' to count the beads." 
 
 Hendry made his way into these 
 gossips uninvited, for his opinions on 
 dress were considered contemptible, 
 though he was worth consulting on 
 material. Jess and Leeby discussed 
 many things in his presence, confi- 
 dent that his ears were not doing their 
 work ; but every now and then it was 
 discovered that he had been hearken- 
 ing greedily. If the subject was dress, 
 he might then become a little irritating. 
 
 " Oh, they're grand," Jess admitted ; 
 *' they set a body aff oncommon." 
 
 "They would be no use to you," 
 said Hendry, " for ye canna wear them 
 except ootside. " 
 
 *'A body doesna buy cloaks to be 
 wearin' at them steady," retorted Jess.
 
 96 H Window In ^brum6. 
 
 '*No, no, but you could never wear 
 yours though ye had ane/' 
 
 "I dinna want ane. They're far 
 ower grand for the Hke o' me." 
 
 ''They're no nae sic thing. Am 
 thinkin' ye're juist as fit to wear an 
 eleven and a bit as My Hobart. " 
 
 "Weel, mebbe I am, but it's oot o^ 
 the question gettin' ane, they're sic a 
 price." 
 
 "Ay, an' though we had the siller, 
 it would surely be an awfu' like thing to 
 buy a cloak 'at ye could never wear ? " 
 
 '' Ou, but I dinna want ane." 
 
 Jess spoke so mournfully that Hen- 
 dry became enraged. 
 
 "It's most michty," he said, "'at 
 ye would gang an' set yer heart on sic 
 a completely useless thing." 
 
 " I hinna set my heart on't." 
 
 "Dinna blether. Ye've been speak- 
 in' aboot thae eleven and a bits to 
 Leeby, aff an' on, for twa month."
 
 R ^loak witb JBeaOs. 97 
 
 Then Hendry hobbled off to his 
 loom, and Jess gave me a look which 
 meant that men are trying at the best, 
 once you are tied to them. 
 
 The cloaks continued to turn up 
 in conversation, and Hendry poured 
 scorn upon Jess' weakness, telling her 
 she would be better employed mend- 
 ing his trousers than brooding over an 
 eleven and a bit that would have to 
 spend its life in a drawer. An out- 
 sider would have thought that Hen- 
 dry was positively cruel to Jess. He 
 seemed to take a delight in finding 
 that she had neglected to sew a button 
 on his waistcoat. His real joy, how- 
 ever, was the knowledge that she 
 sewed as no other woman in Thrums 
 could sew. Jess had a genius for 
 making new garments out of old ones, 
 and Hendry never tired of gloating 
 over her cleverness so long as she was 
 not present. He was always athirst 
 7
 
 98 B MlnDow in ^brums. 
 
 for fresh proofs of it, and these were 
 forthcoming every day. Sparing were 
 his words of praise to herself, but in 
 the evening he generahy had a smoke 
 with me in the attic, and then the 
 thought of Jess made him chuckle till 
 his pipe went out. When he smoked 
 he grunted as if in pain, though this 
 really added to the enjoyment. 
 
 " It doesna matter,'' he would say to 
 me, " what Jess turns her hand to, she 
 can mak ony mortal thing. She doesna 
 need nae teachin' ; na, juist gie her a 
 guid look at onything, be it clothes, 
 or furniture, or in the bakin' line, it's 
 all the same to her. She'll mak an- 
 other exactly like it. Ye canna beat 
 her. Her bannocks is so superior 'at 
 a Tilliedrum woman took to her bed 
 after tastin' them, an' when the law- 
 yer has company his wife gets Jess to 
 mak' some bannocks for her an' syne 
 pretends they're her ain bakin'. Ay,
 
 B Cloaft wltb JBca^s. 99 
 
 there's a story aboot that. One day 
 the auld doctor, him 'at's deid, was 
 at his tea at the lawyer's, an' says the 
 guidwife, 'Try the cakes, Mr. Riach ; 
 they're my own bakin'. ' Weel, he was 
 afearsomely outspoken man, the doc- 
 tor, an' nae suner had he the bannock 
 atween his teeth, for he didna stop to 
 swallow't, than he says, ' ^Mistress Ged- 
 die, ' says he, ' I wasna born on a Sab- 
 bath. Xa, na, you're no the first 
 grand leddy 'at has gien me bannocks 
 as their ain bakin' 'at was baked and 
 fired by Jess Logan, her 'at's Hendry 
 McQumpha's wife.' Ay, they say the 
 lawyer's wife didna ken which wy 
 to look, she was that mortified. Its 
 juist the same wi' sew in'. There's 
 wys o' ornamentin' christenin" robes 
 an' the like 'at's kent to naebody but 
 hersel' ; an' as for stockin's, weel, 
 though I've seen her mak sae mony, 
 she amazes me yet. I mind o' a furry
 
 loo U Wiintfovo in ^brum6. 
 
 waistcoat I aince had. Weel, when it 
 was fell dune, do you think she gae it 
 awa to some gaen aboot body (va- 
 grant) ? Na, she made it into a richt 
 neat coat to Jamie, wha was a bit lad- 
 die at the time. When he grew out o' 
 it, she made a slipbody o't for hersel'. 
 Ay, I dinna ken a' the different things 
 it became, but the last time I saw it 
 was ben in the room, whaur she'd 
 covered a footstool wi 't. Yes, Jess 
 is the cleverest crittur I ever saw. 
 Leebys handy, but she's no a patch 
 on her mother." 
 
 I sometimes repeated these pane- 
 gyrics to Jess. She merely smiled, and 
 said that men haver most terrible 
 when they are not at their work. 
 
 Hendry tried Jess sorely over the 
 cloaks, and a time came when, only 
 by exasperating her, could he get her 
 to reply to his sallies. 
 
 " Wha wants an eleven an' a bit ? " 
 she retorted now and again.
 
 B Cloaft wltb JBeaDs. loi 
 
 '' It's you 'at wciiits it," said Hendry 
 promptly. 
 
 "Did I ever say I wanted ane ? 
 What use could I hac for't ? " 
 
 "That's the queistion," said Hen- 
 dry. "Ye canna gang the length o' 
 the door, so ye would never be able 
 to wear't. " 
 
 "Ay, weel," replied Jess, "I'll 
 never hae the chance o' no bein' able 
 to wear't, for, hooever muckle I wanted 
 it, I couldna get it. " 
 
 Jess' infatuation had in time the 
 effect of making Hendry uncomfort- 
 able. In the attic he delivered him- 
 self of such sentiments as these : 
 
 ' ' There's nae understandin' a woman. 
 There's Jess 'at hasna her equal for 
 cleverness in Thrums, man or woman, 
 an' yet she's fair skeered about thae 
 cloaks. Aince a woman sets her mind 
 on something to wear, she's mair on- 
 reasonable than the stupidest man.
 
 I02 B xaflinDow in Q:brum0. 
 
 Ay, it micht mak' them humble to see 
 hoo foolish they are syne. No, but it 
 doesna do"t, 
 
 " If it was a thing to be useful, noo, 
 I wouldna think the same o't, but she 
 could never wear't. She kens she 
 could never wear't, an 'yet she's juist 
 as keen to hae't 
 
 " I dinna like to see her so wantin' a 
 thing, an' no able to get it. But it's an 
 awfu' sum, eleven an' a bit. " 
 
 He tried to argue with her further. 
 
 "If ye had eleven an' a bit to fling 
 awa," he said, "ye dinna mean to tell 
 me 'at ye would buy a cloak instead o' 
 cloth for a gown, or a flannel for petti- 
 coats, or some useful thing ? " 
 
 "As sure as death," said Jess, with 
 unwonted vehemence, "if a cloak I 
 could get, a cloak I would buy." 
 
 Hendry came up to tell me what 
 Jess had said. 
 
 * * It's a michty infatooation, " he said.
 
 B Cloaft witb JBca^s. 103 
 
 **but it shows hoo her heart's set on 
 thae cloaks. " 
 
 " Aince ye had it, "he argued with 
 her, "ye would juist hae to lock it 
 awa in the drawers. Ye would never 
 even be seein' 't. " 
 
 ' ' Ay, would I, " said Jess. ' ' I would 
 often tak it oot an' look at it. Ay, an 
 I would aye ken it was there. " 
 
 "But naebody would ken ye had it 
 but yersel'," said Hendry, who had a 
 vague notion that this was a telling 
 objection. 
 
 "Would they no.-^" answered Jess. 
 *' It would be a' through the toon afore 
 nicht." 
 
 " Weel, all I can say," said Hendry, 
 "is 'at ye're terrible foolish to tak' the 
 want o' sic a useless thing to heart." 
 
 "Am no takkin' 't to heart," retorted 
 Jess, as usual. 
 
 Jess needed many things in her days 
 that poverty kept from her to the end.
 
 I04 21 llClinDow in tibrums. 
 
 and the cloak was merely a luxury. 
 She would soon have let it slip by as 
 something unattainable had not Hen- 
 dry encouraged it to rankle in her mind. 
 I cannot say when he first determined 
 that Jess should haA^e a cloak, come 
 the money as it liked, for he was too 
 ashamed of his weakness to admit his 
 project to me. I remember, however, 
 his saying to Jess one day : 
 
 " I'll warrant ye could mak' a cloak 
 yersel' the marrows o' thae eleven and 
 a bits, at half the price ? " 
 
 ' ' It would cost, " said Jess, ' ' sax an' 
 saxpence, exactly. The cloth would 
 be five shillins, an' the beads a shillin'. 
 I have some braid 'at would do fine for 
 the front, but the buttons would be 
 saxpence." 
 
 " Ye're sure o' that ? " 
 
 " I ken fine, for I got Leeby to price 
 the things in the shop. " 
 
 *' Ay, but it maun be ill to shape the
 
 21 Cloak witb 3i6caO0. 105 
 
 cloaks richt. There was a queer cut 
 aboot that ane Peter Dickie's new wife 
 had on." 
 
 "Queer cut or no queer cut,'" said 
 Jess, " I took the shape o' My Hobart's 
 ane the day she was here at her tea, an' 
 I could mak' the identical o't for sax 
 and sax. " 
 
 ''I dinna believet," said Hendry, 
 but when he and I were alone he told 
 me: " There's no a doubt she could 
 mak' it. Ye heard her say she had ta'en 
 the shape.? Ay, that shows she's rale 
 set on a cloak." 
 
 Had Jess known that Hendry had 
 been saving up for months to buy her 
 material for a cloak, she would not 
 have let him do it. She could not 
 know, however, for all the time he was 
 scraping together his pence he kept up 
 a ring-ding-dang about her folly. Hen- 
 dry gave Jess all the wages he weaved 
 except threepence weekly, most of
 
 io6 B minOow in ^brumg. 
 
 which went in tobacco and snuff. 
 The dulseman had perhaps a half- 
 penny from him in the fortnight. I 
 noticed that for a long time Hendry 
 neither smoked nor snuffed, and I knew 
 that for years he had carried a shilling 
 in his snuff-mull. The remamder of 
 the money he must have made by extra 
 work at his loom by w^orking harder, 
 for he could scarcely have worked 
 longer. 
 
 It was one day shortly before Jamie's 
 return to Thrums that Jess saw Hendry 
 pass the house and go down the brae 
 when he ought to have come in to his 
 brose. She sat at the window watch- 
 ing for him, and by and by he reap- 
 peared, carrying a parcel. 
 
 ' ' Whaur on earth hae ye been ? " she 
 asked, "an' what's that you're car- 
 ryin' ? " 
 
 " Did ye think it was an eleven an* 
 a bit ? " said Hendry.
 
 H CloaK witb Ji5ca^^. 
 
 [07 
 
 "No, I diclna,"' answered Jess indig- 
 nantly. 
 
 Then Ilcndry slowly undid the knots 
 of the string with which the parcel was 
 tied. He took off the brown paper. 
 
 "There's yer cloth," he said, "an' 
 here's one an' saxpence for the beads 
 an' the buttons." 
 
 While Jess still stared he followed 
 me ben the house. 
 
 " It's a terrible haver," he said, apol- 
 ogetically, **but she had set her heart 
 on't."
 
 io8 B Window in C brums. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE POWER OF BEAUTY. 
 
 One evening there was such a gath- 
 ering at the pig-sty that Hendry and I 
 could not get a board to lay our backs 
 against. Circumstances had pushed 
 Pete Elshioner into the place of honor 
 that belonged by right of mental pow- 
 ers to Tammas Haggart, and Tammas 
 was sitting rather sullenly on the 
 bucket, boring a hole in the pig with 
 his sarcastic eye. Pete was passing 
 round a card, and in time it reached 
 me. ''With Mr. and^NIrs. David Alex- 
 ander's compliments," was printed on 
 it, and Pete leered triumphantly at us 
 as it went the round. 
 
 "Weel, what think ye .^ " he asked, 
 with a pretense at modesty.
 
 Zbc power of Bcautv?. 109 
 
 "Ou," said T'nowhead, looking at 
 the others like one who asked a ques- 
 tion, " ou, I think ; ay, ay.'' 
 
 The others seemed to agree with him 
 — all but Tammas, who did not care 
 to tie himself down to an opinion. 
 
 " Ou ay," T'nowhead continued, 
 more confidently, " it is so, deceed- 
 edly. " 
 
 " Ye'll no ken," said Pete, chuckling-, 
 ''what it means .^ " 
 
 ''Na,"the farmer admitted, ''na, I 
 canna say I exac'ly ken that." 
 
 "I ken, though," said Tammas in 
 his keen way. 
 
 ''Weel, then, what is't .^ " demanded 
 Pete, who had never properly come 
 under Tammas' spell. 
 
 " I ken," said Tammas. 
 
 " Oot wi't, then." 
 
 " I dinna say it's lyin' on my 
 tongue," Tammas replied in a tone of 
 reproof, " but if ye'll juist speak awa
 
 no B TKainDow In ZTbrums. 
 
 aboot some other thing for a meenute 
 or twa, ril tell ye syne." 
 
 Hendry said that this was only 
 reasonable, but we could think of no 
 subject at the moment, so we only 
 stared at Tammas and waited. 
 
 "I fathomed it," he said at last, '*as 
 sune as my een lichted on't. It's one 
 o' the bit cards 'at grand fowk slip 
 'aneath doors when they mak calls, an' 
 their friends is no in. Ay, that's what 
 it is." 
 
 ''I dinna say ye're wrang, " Pete 
 answered a little annoyed. ' ' Ay, weel, 
 lads, of course Davit Alexander's oor 
 Dite as we called 'im, Dite Elshioner, 
 an' that's his wy o' signifyin' to us 'at 
 he's married.'' 
 
 ''I assure ye," said Hendry, " Dite's 
 doin' the thing in style." 
 
 "Ay, we said that when the card 
 arrived," Pete admitted. 
 
 "I kent," said Tammas, "'at that
 
 Cbc power of 36caut\}. 1 1 1 
 
 was the wy grand towkdid wlicn they 
 got married. I've kent it a law^ tinio. 
 It's no nae surprise to nie. " 
 
 "He's been hmi^ in inarr\iii . 
 Hookey Crewe said. 
 
 *' He was thirty at Martinmas." said 
 Tete. 
 
 "Thirty, was he.**" said Hookey. 
 "Man, I'd buried twa wives by the 
 time I was that age, an' was castin* 
 aboot for a third." 
 
 "I mind o' them," Hendry inter- 
 posed. 
 
 " Ay," Hookey said, "the first twa 
 was angels. " There he paused. * ' An' 
 so's the third," he added, "in many 
 respects. " 
 
 "But wha's the woman Dite's 
 ta'en ? " T'nowhead or some one of 
 the more silent members of the com- 
 pany asked of Pete. 
 
 " Ou, we dinna ken wha she is." 
 answered Pete ; ' * but she'll be some
 
 112 "B. MinDow in ^brums. 
 
 Glasca lassie, for he's there noo. 
 Look, lads, look at this. He sent this 
 at the same time ; its her picture." 
 Pete produced the silhouette of a young 
 lady, and handed it round. 
 
 "What do ye think ? " he asked. 
 
 " I assure ye ! " said Hookey. 
 
 *'Sal,'" said Hendry, even more 
 charmed, " Dite's done week" 
 
 " Lat's see her in a better licht," said 
 Tammas. 
 
 He stood up and examined the pho- 
 tograph narrowly, while Pete fidgeted 
 with his legs. 
 
 ''Fairish," said Tammas at last. 
 **0u, ay ; no what I would selec' my- 
 sel', but a dainty bit stocky ! Ou, a 
 tasty crittury ! ay, an' she's weel in 
 order. Lads, she's a fine stoot kim- 
 mer." 
 
 **I conseeder her a beauty," said 
 Pete aggressively. 
 
 ''She's a' that," said Hendry.
 
 Zbc power of :©caut^. 113 
 
 "A' I can say," said Hookey, "is 
 'at she taks me most michty.' 
 
 "She's no a beauty," Tammas main- 
 tained ; " na, she doesna juist come 
 up to that ; but I dinna deny but what 
 shes weel faured. " 
 
 " What faut do ye find wi' her, Tam- 
 mas ? " asked Hendry. 
 
 " Conseedered critically," said Tam- 
 mas, holding the photograph at arm's 
 length, " I would sa}' 'at she — let's 
 see, noo ; ay, I would say 'at she's 
 defeecient in genteelity. " 
 
 " Havers," said Pete. 
 
 "Na," said Tammas, "no when 
 conseedered critically. Ye see she's 
 drawn lauchin' ; an' the genteel thing's 
 no to lauch, but juist to put on a bit 
 smirk. Ay, that's the genteel thing." 
 
 "A smile, they ca' it," interposed 
 T'nowhead. 
 
 "I said a smile," continued Tam- 
 mas. " Then there's her waist. I say 
 8
 
 114 B MinDow in ^brums» 
 
 naething agin her waist, speakin' in 
 the ord'nar meanin' ; but, conseedered 
 critically, there's a want o' suppleness, 
 as ye micht say, aboot it. Ay, it 
 
 doesna compare wi' the waist o' " 
 
 [Here Tammas mentioned a young 
 lady who had recently married into a 
 local county family. ] 
 
 "That was a pretty tiddy," said 
 Hookey. 
 
 ''Ou, losh, ay ! it made me a kind 
 o' queery to look at her." 
 
 '' Ye're ower kyowowy (particular), 
 Tammas," said Pete. 
 
 '' It may be, Pete," Tammas ad- 
 mitted; ''but I maun say I'm fond o' 
 a bonny-looken wuman, an' no aisy to 
 please ; na, Fm nat'rally ane o' the 
 critical kind." 
 
 "It's extror'nar," said T'nowhead, 
 " what a poo'er beauty has. I mind 
 when I was a callant reedin' aboot 
 Mary Queen o' Scots till I was fair
 
 Zbc power ot JBcautg. 115 
 
 mad, lads ; yes, I was fair mad at her 
 bein' deid. Ou, I could hardly sleep 
 at nichts for thinking o' her." 
 
 "Mary was spunky as weel as a 
 beauty," said Hookey, " an' that's the 
 kind I like. Lads, what a persuasive 
 lid she was ! " 
 
 " She got roondthemen," said Hen- 
 dry ; "ay, she turned them roond her 
 finger. That's the warst o' thae beau- 
 ties. " 
 
 "I dinna gainsay," said T'nowhead, 
 "but what there was a little o' the 
 deevil in ]\Iary, the crittur." 
 
 Here T'nowhead chuckled, and then 
 looked scared. 
 
 "What Mary needed," said Tam- 
 mas, "was a strong man to manage 
 her." 
 
 "Ay, man, but it's ill to manage 
 thae beauties. They gie ye a glint o' 
 their een, an' syne whaur are ye ? " 
 
 "Ah, they can be managed," said
 
 ii6 B IMinDow in ^bcums. 
 
 Tammas complacently. ' ' There's nae- 
 body nat'rally safter wi' a pretty stocky 
 o' a bit wumany than mysel' ; but for 
 a' that, if I had been Mary's man, I 
 would hae stood nane o' her tantrums. 
 ' Na, Mary, my lass,' I would hae 
 said, ' this winna do ; na, na, ye're a 
 bonny body, but ye maun mind 'at 
 man's the superior ; ay, man's the 
 lord o' creation, an' so ye maun juist 
 sing sma'.' That's hoo I would hae 
 managed Mary, the speerity crittur 'at 
 she was." 
 
 ' ' Ye would hae haen y er wark cut 
 oot for ye, Tammas. " 
 
 "Ilka mornin'," pursued Tammas, 
 . *' I would hae said to her : ' Mary,' I 
 would hae said, ' wha's to wear thae 
 breeks the day, you or me .? ' Ay, syne 
 I would hae ordered her to kindle the 
 fire, or if I had been the king of coorse 
 I would hae telt her instead to ring the 
 bell an' hae the cloth laid for the
 
 TLbc power ot JBcaut^. 117 
 
 breakfast. Ay, that's the wy to mak 
 the like o' Mary respec' ye." 
 
 Pete and I left them talking. He 
 had written a letter to David Alexan- 
 der, and wanted me to " back " it.
 
 ii8 B TKHlnDow in ^brums. 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A MAGNUM OPUS. 
 
 Two Bibles, a volume of sermons 
 by the learned Dr. Isaac Barrow, a few 
 numbers of the Cheap Magazine, that 
 had strayed from Dunfermline, and a 
 '' Pilgrim's Progress," were the works 
 that lay conspicuous ben in the room. 
 Hendry had also a copy of Burns, 
 whom he always quoted in the com- 
 plete poem, and a collection of legends 
 in song and prose, that Leeby kept out 
 of sight in a drawer. 
 
 The weight of my box of books was 
 a subject Hendry was very willing to 
 shake his head over, but he never 
 showed any desire to take off the lid. 
 Jess, however, was more curious ; in-
 
 B /IRa^num ©pus. 119 
 
 deed, she would have been an omniv- 
 orous devourer of books had it not 
 been for her conviction that reading- 
 was idling-. Until I found her out, 
 she never allowed to me that Leeby 
 brought her my books one at a time. 
 Some of them were novels, and Jess 
 took about ten minutes to each. She 
 confessed that what she read was only 
 the last chapter, owing to a consum- 
 ing curiosity to know whether "she 
 got him." 
 
 She read all the London parts, how- 
 ever, of *'The Heart of Midlothian," 
 because London was where Jamie 
 lived, and she and I had a discussion 
 about it which ended in her remember- 
 ing that Thrums once had an author 
 of its own. 
 
 "Bring oot the book," she said to 
 Leeby ; "it was put awa i' the bottom 
 drawer ben i' the room sax year syne, 
 an' I'se wad it's there yet."
 
 120 B lldinDow in C:brum5. 
 
 Leeby came but with a faded little 
 book, the title already rubbed from its 
 shabby brown covers. I opened it, 
 and then all at once I saw before me 
 again the man who wrote and printed 
 it and died. He came hobbling up 
 the brae, so bent that his body was 
 almost at right angles to his legs, and 
 his broken silk hat was carefully 
 brushed as in the days when Janet, 
 his sister, lived. There he stood at the 
 top of the brae, panting. 
 
 I was but a boy when Jimsy Duthie 
 turned the corner of the brae for the 
 last time, with a score of mourners 
 behind him. While I knew him there 
 was no Janet to run to the door to see 
 if he was coming. So occupied was 
 Jimsy with the great affair of his life, 
 w^hich was brewing for thirty years, 
 that his neighbors saw how he missed 
 his sister better than he realized it him- 
 self. Only his hat was no longer care-
 
 21 /ftaonum Opus. 121 
 
 fully brushed, and his coat hung awry, 
 and there was sometimes little reason 
 why he should go home to dinner. It 
 is for the sake of Janet, who adored 
 him, that we should remember Jimsy 
 in the days before she died. 
 
 Jimsy was a poet, and for the space 
 of thirty years he lived in a great epic 
 on the Millennium. This is the book 
 presented to me by Jess, that lies so 
 quietly on my topmost shelf now. 
 Open it, however, and you will find 
 that the work is entitled "The Millen- 
 nium : an Epic Poem, in Twelve 
 Books : by James Duthie." In the 
 little hole in his wall where Jimsy kept 
 his books there was, I have no doubt, 
 — for his effects were rouped before I 
 knew him except by name, — a well- 
 read copy of ''Paradise Lost." Some 
 people would smile, perhaps, if they 
 read the two epics side by side, and 
 others might sigh, for there is a great
 
 122 B TaainDow in ^brums. 
 
 deal in *'The Millennium" that Milton 
 could take credit for. Jimsy had ed- 
 ucated himself, after the idea of writing 
 something that the world would not 
 willingly let die came to him, and he 
 began his book before his education 
 was complete. So far as I know, he 
 never wrote a line that had not to do 
 with "The Millennium." He was 
 ever a man sparing of his plural tenses, 
 and "The Millennium" says "has" 
 for ' ' liave " ; a vain word, indeed^ 
 which Thrums would only have per- 
 mitted as a poetical license. The one 
 original character in the poem is the 
 devil, of whom Jimsy gives a picture 
 that is startling and graphic, and re- 
 ceived the approval of the Auld Licht 
 minister. 
 
 By trade Jimsy was a printer, a 
 master-printer with no one under him, 
 and he printed and bound his book, ten 
 copies in all, as well as wrote it. To
 
 B /IBagnum ©pug. 125 
 
 t 
 
 print the poem took him, I dare say, 
 nearly as long as to write it, and he 
 set up the pages as they were written, 
 one by one. The book is only printed 
 on one side of the leaf, and each page 
 was produced separately like a little 
 hand-bill. Those who may pick up 
 the book — but who will care to do so ? 
 — will think that the author or his 
 printer could not spell — but they would 
 not do Jimsy that injustice if they 
 knew the circumstances in which it 
 was produced. He had but a small 
 stock of type, and on many occasions 
 he ran out of a letter. The letter e 
 tried him sorely. Those who knew 
 him best say that he tried to think of 
 words without an e in them, but when 
 he was baffled he had to use a little a 
 or an o instead. He could print cor- 
 rectly, but in the book there are a 
 good many capital letters in the mid- 
 dle of words, and sometimes there is
 
 124 ^ WinDow in ^brums. 
 
 a note of interrogation after "alas " or 
 "woes me, " because all the notes of 
 exclamation had been used up. 
 
 Jimsy never cared to speak about 
 his great poem even to his closest 
 friends, but Janet told how he read it 
 out to her, and that his whole body- 
 trembled with excitement while he 
 raised his eyes to heaven as if asking 
 for inspiration that would enable his 
 voice to do justice to his writing. So 
 grand it was, said Janet, that her 
 stocking would slip from her fingers 
 as he read — and Janet's stockings, that 
 she was always knitting when not 
 otherwise engaged, did not slip from 
 her hands readily. After her death he 
 was heard by his neighbors reciting 
 the poem to himself, generally with 
 his door locked. He is said to have 
 declaimed part of it one still evening 
 from the top of the commonty like 
 one addressing a multitude, and the
 
 a /Raonum ©pu6. 125 
 
 idlers who had crept up to jeer at him 
 fell back when they saw his face. 
 He walked through them, they told, 
 with his old body straight once more, 
 and a queer light playing on his face. 
 His lips are moving as I see him turn- 
 ing the corner of the brae. So he 
 passed from youth to old age, and all 
 his life seemed a dream, except that 
 part of it in which he was writing, or 
 printing, or stitching, or binding ''The 
 Millennium.'' At last the work was 
 completed. 
 
 "It is finished," he printed at the 
 end of the last book. "The task of 
 thirty years is over." 
 
 It is indeed over. No one ever read 
 "The Millennium." I am not going 
 to sentimentalize over my copy, for 
 how much of it have I read.^^ But 
 neither shall I say that it was written 
 to no end. 
 
 You may care to know the last of
 
 126 :a WinDow in ^brums, 
 
 Jimsy, though in one sense he was 
 blotted out when the last copy was 
 bound. He had saved one hundred 
 pounds by that time, and being now 
 neither able to work nor to live alone, 
 his friends cast about for a home for 
 his remaining years. He was very 
 spent and feeble, yet he had the fear 
 that he might be still alive when all 
 his money was gone. After that was 
 the workhouse. He covered sheets 
 of paper with calculations about how 
 long the hundred pounds would last if 
 he gave away for board and lodgings 
 ten shillings, nine shillings, seven and 
 sixpence a week. At last, with sore 
 misgivings, he went to live with a 
 family who took him for eight shil- 
 lings. Less than a month afterward 
 he died.
 
 Jibe (Bbost CraDlc. 127 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE GHOST CRADLE. 
 
 Our dinner hour was 12 o'clock, and 
 Hendry, for a not incomprehensible 
 reason, called this meal his brose. 
 Frequently, however, while I was there 
 to share the expense, broth was put on 
 the table, with beef to follow in clean 
 plates, much to Hendry's distress, for 
 the comfortable and usual practice was 
 to eat the beef from the broth-plates. 
 Jess, however, having three whole 
 white plates and two cracked ones, 
 insisted on the meals being taken gen- 
 teelly, and her husband, with a look 
 at me, gave way. 
 
 "Half a pound o' boiling beef, an' 
 a penny bone," was Leeby's almost in-
 
 128 B minDow In Zbmms, 
 
 variable order when she dealt with the 
 flesher, and Jess had always neighbors 
 poorer than herself, who got a plateful 
 of the broth. She never had anything 
 without remembering some old body 
 who would be the better of a little 
 of it. 
 
 Among those who must have missed 
 Jess sadly after she was gone was 
 Johnny Proctor, a half-witted man 
 who, because he could not work, re- 
 mained straight at a time of Hfe when 
 most weavers, male and female, had 
 lost some inches of their stature. For 
 as far back as my memory goes, Johnny 
 had got his brose three times a week 
 from Jess, his custom being to walk 
 in without ceremony, and, drawing a 
 stool to the table, tell Leeby that he 
 was now ready. One day, however, 
 when I was in the garden putting some 
 rings on a fishing-wand, Johnny pushed 
 by me, with no sign of recognition on
 
 TLbc (Bbost CraMe. 129 
 
 his face. I addressed him, and, after 
 pausing undecidedly, he ignored me. 
 When he came to the door, instead of 
 flinging it open and walking in, he 
 knocked primly, which surprised me 
 so much that I fohowed him. 
 
 " Is this whaur Mistress McQumpha 
 lives ? " he asked, when Leeby, with a 
 face ready to receive the minister him- 
 self, came at length to the door. 
 
 I knew that the gentility of the knock 
 had taken both her and her mother 
 aback. 
 
 " Hoots, Johnny," said Leeby, " what 
 haver's this .? Come awa in." 
 
 Johnny seemed annoyed. 
 
 "Is this whaur Mistress McQumpha 
 lives? " he repeated. 
 
 *'Say 'at it is," cried Jess, who was 
 quicker in the uptake than her daugh- 
 ter. 
 
 "Of course this is whaur IMistress 
 ^McQumpha lives," Leeby then said, 
 9
 
 130 21 llXIlinDow in ^bvums. 
 
 " as weel ye ken, for ye had yer dinner 
 here no twa hours syne." 
 
 "Then," said Johnny, "Mistress 
 Tally's compliments to her, and would 
 she kindly lend the christenin'-robe, 
 an' also the tea-tray, if the same be na 
 needed ? " 
 
 Having delivered his message as in- 
 structed, Johnny consented to sit down 
 until the famous christening-robe and 
 the tray were ready, but he would not 
 talk, for that was not in the bond. 
 Jess' sweet face beamed over the com- 
 pliment-Mrs. Tully, known on ordinary 
 occasions as Jean McTaggart, had paid 
 her, and after Johnny had departed 
 laden, she told me how the tray, which 
 had a great bump in the middle, came 
 into her possession. 
 
 " Ye've often heard me speak aboot 
 the time when I was a lassie workin' 
 at the farm o' the bog ? Ay, that was 
 afore me an' Hendry kent ane anithei
 
 Zbc 0bost CraDle. 131 
 
 an* I was as fleet on my feet in thae 
 days as Leeby is noo. It was Sam'l 
 Fletcher 'at was the farmer, but he 
 maun hae been gone afore you was 
 mair than born. Mebbe, though, ye 
 ken 'at he was a terrible invahd, an' for 
 the hinmost years o' his Hfe he sat in a 
 muckle chair nicht an' day. Ay, when 
 I took his dinner to 'im, on "at very 
 tray 'at Johnny cam for, I Httle thocht 
 'at by an' by I would be sae keepit in 
 a chair mysel'. 
 
 " But the thinkin' o' Sam'l Fletcher's 
 case is ane o' the things 'at maks me 
 awfu' thankfu' for the lenient wy the 
 Lord has aye dealt wi' me ; for Sam'l 
 couldna move oot o' the chair, aye 
 sleepin' in't at nicht, an' I can come 
 an' gang between mine an' my bed. 
 Mebbe, ye think Fm no much better 
 off than Sam'l, but that's a terrible 
 mistak. What a glory it would hae 
 been to him if he could hae gone frae
 
 132 B liCKnDow in ^brums. 
 
 one end o' the kitchen to the ither ! 
 Ay, I'm sure o' that. 
 
 " Sam'l was rale weel Hked, for he 
 was saft-spoken to everybody, an' fond 
 o' ha'en a gossip wi' ony ane 'at was 
 aboot the farm. We didna care sae 
 muckle for the wife, Eppie Lownie, 
 for she managed the farm, an' she was 
 fell hard an' terrible reserved we thocht, 
 no even likin' ony body to get friendly 
 wi' the mester, as we called Sam'l. 
 Ay, we made a richt mistak. " 
 
 As I had heard frequently of this 
 queer, mournful mistake made by those 
 who considered Sam'l unfortunate in 
 his wife, I turned Jess on the main line 
 of her story. 
 
 "It was the ghost cradle, as they 
 named it, 'at I meant to tell ye aboot. 
 The bog was a bigger farm in thae 
 days than noo, but I daursay it has the 
 new steadin' yet. Ay, it winna be 
 new noo, but at the time there was sic
 
 Zbc 0bO5t CraDlc. 133 
 
 a commotion aboot the ghost cradle, 
 they were juist puttin' the new steadin' 
 up. There was sax or mair masons at 
 it, wi' the lads on the farm helpin', an' 
 as they were all sleepin' at the farm, 
 there was great stir aboot the place. 
 I couldna tell ye hoo the story aboot 
 the farm s bein' haunted rose, to begin 
 wi', but I mind fine hoo field I was ; 
 ay, an' no only me, but every man- 
 body an' woman-body on the farm. It 
 was aye late 'at the soond began, an' 
 we never saw naething — we juist heard 
 it. The masons said they wouldna 
 hae been sae field if they could hae 
 secn't, but it never was seen. It had 
 the soond o' a cradle rockin', an' when 
 we lay in our beds hearkenin', it grew 
 louder an' louder till it wasna to be 
 borne, an' the woman-folk fair skirled 
 wi' fear. The mester was intimate wi' 
 a' the stories aboot ghosts an' water- 
 kelpies an' sic like, an' we couldna help
 
 134 ^ liJollnDow in G;brum0. 
 
 listenin' to them. But he aye said 'at 
 ghosts 'at was juist heard an' no seen 
 was the maist fearsome an' wicked. 
 For all there was sic fear ower the hale 
 farm-toon 'at naebody would gang 
 ower the door alane after the gloamin' 
 cam, the mester said he wasna fleid 
 to sleep i' the kitchen by 'imsel'. We 
 thocht it richt brave o' im, for ye see 
 he was as helpless as a bairn. 
 
 " Richt queer stories rose aboot the 
 cradle, an' traveled to the ither farms. 
 The wife didna like them ava, for it 
 was said 'at there maun hae been some 
 awful murder o" an infant on the farm, 
 or we wouldnabe haunted by a cradle. 
 Syne folk began to mind 'at there had 
 been nae bairns born on the farm as 
 far back as onybody kent, an' it was 
 said 'at some lang syne crime had 
 made the bog cursed. 
 
 " Dinna think 'at we juist lay in our 
 beds or sat round the fire shakin' wi'
 
 x£bc (5bO0t CraMe. 135 
 
 fear. Everything 'at could be dune was 
 dune. In the daytime, when naething 
 way heard, the masons explored a' place 
 i' the farm, in the hope o' findin' oot 'at 
 the soond was caused by sic a thing 
 as the wind playin' on the wood in the 
 garret. Even at nichts, when they 
 couldna sleep wi' the soond, I've kent 
 them rise in a body an' gang all ower 
 the house wi' lichts. I've seen them 
 climbin' on the new steadin', crawlin' 
 alang the rafters haudin' their cruizey 
 lamps afore them, an' us woman-bodies 
 shiverin' wi' fear at the door. It was 
 on ane o' thae nichts 'at a mason fell 
 off the rafters an' broke his leg. Weel, 
 sic a state was the men in to find oot 
 what it was 'at was terrifyin' them sae 
 muckle, 'at the rest o' them climbed up 
 at aince to the place he'd fallen frae, 
 thinkin' there was something there 'at 
 ' had fleid 'im. But though they crawled 
 back an' forrit there was naething ava.
 
 136 21 MinOow in ^brums, 
 
 "The rockin' was louder, we thocht, 
 after that nicht, an' syne the men said 
 it would go on till somebody was killed. 
 That idea took a richt haud o' them, 
 an' twa ran awa back to Tilliedrum, 
 whaur they had come frae. They 
 gaed thegither i' the middle o' the 
 nicht, an' it was thocht next mornin' 
 'at the ghost had spirited them awa. 
 
 "Ye couldna conceive hoo low- 
 spirited we all were after the masons 
 had gien up hope o' findin' a nat'ral 
 cause for the soond. At ord'nar times 
 there's no ony mair lichtsome place 
 than a farm after the men hae come 
 in to their supper, but at the bog we 
 sat dour an' sullen ; an' there wasna 
 a mason or a farm-servant 'at would 
 gang by 'imsel' as far as the end o' the 
 hoose whaur the peats was keepit. 
 The mistress maun hae saved some 
 siller that spring through the Egyp-* 
 tians (gypsies) kcepin' awa, for the
 
 ^be (5b05t CraDle. 137 
 
 farm had got sic an ill name 'at nae 
 tinkler would come near't at nicht. 
 The tailorman an' his laddie, 'at should 
 hae bidden wi' us to sew things for the 
 men, walkit off fair skeered one morn- 
 in', an' settled doon at the farm o' 
 Cragiebuckle fower mile awa, whaur 
 our lads had to gae to them. Ay, I 
 mind the tailor's sendin' the laddie for 
 the money ow'n him ; he hadna the 
 specrit to venture again within soond 
 o' the cradle 'imsel'. The men on tlie 
 farm, though, couldna blame "im for 
 that. They w^ere juist as flichtered 
 themsels, an' mony a time I saw them 
 hittin' the dogs for whinin' at the soond. 
 The wy the dogs took on was fear- 
 some in itsel', for they seemed to ken, 
 aye when nicht cam on, 'at therockin' 
 would sune begin, an' if they werena 
 chained they cam runnin' to the hoose. 
 I hae heard the hale glen fu, as ye 
 micht say, wi' the whinin' o' dogs, for
 
 138 B "MinDow in ^brums. 
 
 the dogs on the other farms took up 
 the cry, an' in a glen ye can hear 
 soonds terrible far awa' at nicht. 
 
 "As lang as we sat i' the kitchen, 
 listenin' to what the mester had to say 
 aboot the ghosts in his young days, 
 the cradle would be still, but we 
 were nae suner awa' speritless to our 
 beds than it began, an* sometimes it 
 lasted till mornin.' We lookit upon 
 the mester almost wi' awe, sittin' there 
 sae helpless in his chair, an" no fleid 
 to be left alane. He had lang white 
 hair, an' a saft bonny face 'at would 
 hae made 'im respeckit by onybody, 
 an' aye when we speired if he wasna 
 fleid to be left alane, he said, 'Them 
 'at has a clear conscience has naething 
 to fear frae ghosts.' 
 
 "There was some 'at said the curse 
 would never leave the farm till the 
 house was razed to the ground, an' 
 it's the truth I'm tellin' ye when I say
 
 Zbc ©best GraMe. 139 
 
 there was talk among the men aboot 
 settin"t on tire. The mester was richt 
 stern when he heard o' that, quotin' 
 frae Scripture in a solemn wy 'at 
 abashed the masons, but he said 'at in 
 his opeenion there was a bairn buried 
 on the farm, an' till it was found the 
 cradle would go on rockin'. After 
 that the masons dug in a lot o" places 
 lookin' for the body, an' they found 
 some queer things, too, but never nae 
 sign o" a murdered litlin'. Ay, I dinna 
 ken what would hae happened if the 
 commotion had gaen on muckle langer. 
 One thing I'm sure o' is 'at the mistress 
 would hae gaen daft, she took it a' sae 
 terrible to heart. 
 
 *' I lauch at it noo, but I tell ye I 
 used to tak my heart to my bed in my 
 mooth. If ye hinna heard the story, 
 I dinna think ye'll be able to guess 
 what the ghost cradle was." 
 
 I said I had been trying to think 
 what the tray had to do with it.
 
 140 U "minnow in ^brums. 
 
 " It had everything to do wi't," said 
 Jess ; " an' if the masons had kent hoo 
 that cradle was rockit, I think they 
 would hae killed the mester. It was 
 Eppie 'at found oot, an' she telt nae- 
 body but me, though mony a ane kens 
 noo. I see ye canna mak it oot yet, 
 so ril tell ye what the cradle was. 
 The tray was keepit against the kitchen 
 wall near the mester, an' he played 
 on't wi' his foot. He made it gang 
 bump bump, an' the soond was juist 
 like a cradle rockin'. Ye could hardly 
 believe sic a thing would hae made 
 that din, but it did, an' ye see we lay 
 in ourbeds hearkenin' for't. Ay, when 
 Eppie telt me, I could scarce believe 
 'at that guid devout lookin' man could 
 hae been sae wicked. Ye see, when 
 he found hoo terrified we a' were, he 
 keepit it up. The wy Eppie found 
 out i' the tail o' the day was by 
 wonderin' at 'im sleepin' sae muckle
 
 Zbe 0bO5t CraMe. 141 
 
 in the daytime. He did that so as to 
 be fresh for his sport at nicht. What 
 a tine releegious man we thoucht 'im, 
 too! 
 
 "Eppie couldna bear the very sicht 
 o' the tray after that, an' she telt me 
 to break it up ; but I keepit it, ye see. 
 The lump i' the middle's the mark, as 
 ye may say, o' the auld man's foot."
 
 142 a "WHinDow in Q:brum0, 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A WIFE. 
 
 Were Jess still alive to tell the life- 
 story of Sam'l Fletcher and his wife, 
 you could not hear it and sit still. 
 The ghost cradle is but a page from 
 the black history of a woman who 
 married, to be blotted out from that 
 hour. One case of the kind I myself 
 have known, of a woman so good, 
 mated to a man so selfish, that I can- 
 not think of her even now with a steady 
 mouth. Hers was the tragedy of liv- 
 ing on, more mournful than the tragedy 
 that kills. In Thrums the weavers 
 spoke of " lousing " from their looms, 
 removing the chains, and there is 
 something woful in that. But pity
 
 ^be Zxhqc^^ of a "Mite, 143 
 
 poor Nanny Coutts, who took her 
 chains to bed with her. 
 
 Nanny was buried a montli or more 
 before I came to the house on the brae, 
 and even in Thrums the dead are sel- 
 dom remembered for so long a time as 
 that. But it was only after Sanders 
 was left alone that we learned what a 
 woman she had been, and how basely 
 we had wronged her. She was an 
 angel, Sanders went about whining 
 when he had no longer a woman to ill- 
 treat, lie had this sentimental way 
 with him, but it lost its effect after we 
 knew the man. 
 
 "A deevil couldna hae deserved 
 waur treatment," Tammas Haggart 
 said to him; "gang oot o' my sicht, 
 man ! " 
 
 ''I'll blame mysel' till I die," Jess 
 said, with tears in her eyes, "for no 
 understandin' puir Nanny better." 
 
 So Nanny got sympathy at last, but
 
 144 ^ "MinDow in ^brums, 
 
 not until her forgiving soul had left hei 
 tortured body. There was many a 
 kindly heart in Thrums that would 
 have gone out to her in her lifetime, 
 but we could not have loved her with- 
 out upbraiding him, and she would not 
 buy sympathy at the price. What a 
 little story it is, and how few words 
 are required to tell it ! He was a bad 
 husband to her, and she kept it secret. 
 That is Nanny s life summed up. It 
 is all that was left behind when her 
 coffin went down the brae. Did she 
 love him to the end, or was she only 
 doing what she thought her duty.? It 
 is not for me even to guess. A good 
 woman who suffers is altogether 
 beyond man's reckoning. To such 
 heights of self-sacrifice we cannot rise. 
 It crushes us ; it ought to crush us on 
 to our knees. For us who saw Nanny, 
 infirm, shrunken, and so weary, yet 
 a type of the noblest womanhood,
 
 ^bc ZxaQctf^ of a TlDllte. 145 
 
 suffering for years, and misunderstood 
 her to the end, what expiation can 
 there be? I do not want to storm 
 at the man who made her life so 
 burdensome. Too many years have 
 passed for that, nor would Nanny 
 take it kindly if I called her man 
 names. 
 
 Sanders worked little after his mar- 
 riage. He had a sore back, he said, 
 which became a torture if he leant for- 
 ward at his loom. What truth there 
 was in this I cannot say, but not every 
 weaver in Thrums could ' ' louse " 
 when his back grew sore. Nanny 
 went to the loom in his place, filling 
 as well as weaving, and he walked 
 about, dressed better than the common, 
 and with cheerful words for those who 
 had time to listen. Nanny got no ap- 
 proval even for doing his work as well 
 as her own, for they were understood 
 to have money, and Sanders let us 
 10
 
 146 B "MinDow in ^brums, 
 
 think her merely greedy. We drifted 
 into his opinions. 
 
 Had Jess been one of those who 
 could go about, she would, I think, 
 have read Nanny better than the rest 
 of us, for her intellect was bright and 
 always led her straight to her neigh- 
 bors' hearts. But Nanny visited no 
 one, and so Jess only knew her by 
 hearsay. Nanny's standoffishness, as 
 it was called, was not a popular virtue, 
 and she was blamed still more for try- 
 ing to keep her husband out of other 
 people's houses. He was so frank and 
 full of gossip, and she was so reserved. 
 He would go everywhere, and she no- 
 w^here. He had been known to ask 
 neighbors to tea, and she had shown 
 that she wanted them away, or even 
 begged them not to come. We were 
 not accustomed to go behind the face 
 of a thing, and so we sat down Nanny's 
 inhospitality to churlishness or greed.
 
 XLbc Cra(^cDv> ot a "Uaitc. 147 
 
 Only after her death, when other 
 women had to attend him, did we get 
 to know what a tyrant Sanders was 
 at his own hearth. The ambition of 
 Nanny's Hfe was that we should never 
 know it, that we should continue ex- 
 tolling- him, and say what we chose 
 about herself. She knew that if we 
 went much about the house and saw 
 how he treated her, Sanders would 
 cease to be a respected man in Thrums. 
 
 So neat in his dress was Sanders, 
 that he was seldom seen abroad in 
 corduroys. His blue bonnet for every- 
 day wear was such as even well-to-do 
 farmers only wore at fair-time, and it 
 was said that he had a handkerchief 
 for every day in the week. Jess often 
 held him up to Hendry as a model of 
 courtesy and polite manners. 
 
 "Him an' Nanny's no wecl match- 
 ed, " she used to say, ' ' for he has g-rand 
 ideas, an' she's o' the commonest. It
 
 148 a TlCltnDow in ^brums. 
 
 maun be a richt trial to a man wi' his 
 fine tastes to hae a wife 'at's wrapper's 
 never even on, an' wha doesna wash 
 her mutch aince in a month." 
 
 It is true that Nanny was a slattern, 
 but only because she married into 
 slavery. She was kept so busy wash- 
 ing and ironing for Sanders that she 
 ceased to care how she looked herself. 
 What did it matter whether her mutch 
 was clean ? Weaving and washing 
 and cooking, doing the work of a bread- 
 winner as well as of a housewife, hers 
 was soon a body prematurely old, on 
 which no wrapper would sit becom- 
 ingly. Before her face, Sanders would 
 hint that her slovenly ways and dress 
 tried him sorely, and in company at 
 least, she only bowed her head. We 
 were given to respecting those who 
 worked hard, but Nanny, we thought, 
 was a woman of means, and Sanders 
 let us call her a miser. He was always
 
 Cbc C^aoc^v» ot a XUitc. 149 
 
 anxious, he said, to be generous, but 
 Nanny would not let him assist a starv- 
 ing child. They had really not a 
 penny beyond what Nanny earned at 
 the loom, and now we know how San- 
 ders shook her if she did not earn 
 enough. His v^anity was responsible 
 for the story about her wealth, and she 
 would not have us think him vain. 
 
 Because she did so much, we said 
 that she was as strong as a cart-horse. 
 The doctor who attended her during 
 the last week of her life discovered tliat 
 she had never been well. Yet we had 
 often wondered at her letting Sanders 
 pit his own potatoes when he was so 
 unable. 
 
 "Them 'at's strong, ye see," Sanders 
 explained, " doesna ken what illness 
 is, an' so it's nat'ral they shouldna 
 sympathize wi' onweel fowk. Ay, I'm 
 rale thankfu' 'at Nanny keeps her 
 health. I often envy her."
 
 150 21 MinOow in ^brums. 
 
 These were considered creditable 
 sentiments, and so they might have 
 been had Nanny uttered them. Thus 
 easily Sanders built up a reputation for 
 never complaining. I know now that 
 he was a hard and cruel man, who 
 should have married a shrew ; but 
 while Nanny lived I thought he had a 
 beautiful nature. Many a time I have 
 spoken with him at Hendry's gate, and 
 felt the better of his heartiness. 
 
 "I mauna complain," he always 
 said ; ' ' na, we maun juist fecht awa. " 
 
 Little, indeed, had he to complain 
 of, and little did he fight away. 
 
 Sanders went twice to church every 
 Sabbath, and thrice when he got the 
 chance. There was no man who 
 joined so lustily in singing or looked 
 straighter at the minister during the 
 prayer. I have heard the minister say 
 that Sanders' constant attendance was 
 an encouragement and a help to him.
 
 Zbc Cra^cO^ ot a iXXitc, 151 
 
 Nanny had been a great church-goer 
 when she was a maiden, but after her 
 marriage she only went in the after- 
 noons, and a time came when she 
 ceased altogether to attend. The min- 
 ister admonished her many times, tell- 
 ing her, among other things, that her 
 irreligious ways were a distress to her 
 husband. She never replied that she 
 could not go to church in the fore- 
 noon, because Sanders insisted on a 
 hot meal being waiting him when the 
 services ended. But it was true that 
 Sanders, for appearances' sake, would 
 have had her go to church in the after- 
 noon. It is now believed that on this 
 point alone did she refuse to do as she 
 was bidden. Nanny was very far 
 from perfect, and the reason she for- 
 sook the kirk utterly was because she 
 had no Sabbath clothes. 
 
 She died as she had lived, saying 
 not a word when the minister, think-
 
 152 B MinDow in ^brums. 
 
 ing it his duty, drew a cruel compari- 
 son between her life and her husband's. 
 
 "I got my first glimpse into the 
 real state of affairs in that house," 
 the doctor told me one night on 
 the brae, the day before she died. 
 * ' ' You're sure there's no hope for me ? ' 
 she asked wistfully, and when I had to 
 tell the truth she sank back on the 
 pillow with a look of joy. " 
 
 Nanny died with a lie on her lips. 
 *'Ay," she said, "Sanders has been a 
 guid man to me."
 
 Rafting tbc JBest of It. 153 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MAKING THE BKST OF IT. 
 
 Hendry had a way of resuming a 
 conversation where he had left off the 
 night before. He would revolve a 
 topic in his mind, too, and then begin 
 aloud, " He's a queer ane," or " Say 
 ye so ? " which was at times perplex- 
 ing. With the whole day before 
 them, none of the family was incHned 
 to waste strength in talk ; but one 
 morning when he was blowing the 
 steam off his porridge, Hendry said, 
 suddenly : 
 
 '* He's hame again." 
 
 The women-folk gave him time to 
 say to whom he was referring, which 
 he occasionally did as an after-thought. 
 But he began to sup his porridge,
 
 54 
 
 B WinDow In ^brums. 
 
 making eyes as it went steaming down 
 his throat. 
 
 "I dinna ken wha ye mean," Jess 
 said, while Leeby, who was on her 
 knees rubbing the hearthstone a bright 
 blue, paused to catch her father's 
 answer. 
 
 " Jeames Geogehan," replied Hen- 
 dry, with the horn spoon in his mouth. 
 
 Leeby turned to Jess for enlighten- 
 ment. 
 
 ' ' Geogehan, " repeated Jess ; * ' what I 
 no little Jeames 'at ran awa .? " 
 
 "Ay, ay, but he's a muckle stoot 
 man noo, an' gey gray. " 
 
 " Ou, I dinna wonder at that. It's 
 a guid forty year since he ran off." 
 
 "I waurant ye couldna say exact 
 hoo lang syne it is } " 
 
 Hendry asked this question because 
 Jess was notorious for her memory, 
 and he gloried in putting it to the test. 
 
 '' Let's see," she said.
 
 ^aftinfl tbe :©c5t ot ITt. 155 
 
 "But wha is he?" asked Leeby. 
 * i never kent nae Geogehans in 
 liirums. " 
 
 " Weel, its forty-one years syne 
 come ■Michaelmas,"' said Jess. 
 
 " Hoo do ye ken ? " 
 
 "I ken fine. Ye mind his father 
 had been lickin' 'im, an' he ran awa 
 in a passion, cryin' oot 'at he would 
 never come back ? Ay, then, he had 
 a pair o' boots on at the time, an' his 
 father ran after 'im an' took them aff 
 'im. The boots was the last 'at Davie 
 jMearns made, an' it's fully ane-an'- 
 forty years since Davie fell ower the 
 quarry on the day o' the hill-market. 
 That settles't. Ay, an' Jeames'U be 
 turned fifty noo, for he was comin' on 
 for ten year auld at that time. Ay, 
 ay, an' he's come back. What a state 
 Eppie'll be in ! " 
 
 "Tell's wha he is, mother." 
 
 ** Od, he's Eppie Guthrie's son. Her
 
 156 'B Wiinttovo in ^brums. 
 
 man was William Geogehan, but he 
 died afore you was born, an' as Jeames 
 was their only bairn, the name o' 
 Geogehan's been a kind o' lost sicht 
 o'. Hae ye seen him, Hendry ? Is't 
 true 'at he made a fortune in thae far- 
 awa countries ? Eppie'll be blawin' 
 aboot him richt ? " 
 
 "There's nae doot aboot the siller," 
 said Hendry, "for he drove in a car- 
 riage frae Tilliedrum, an' they say he 
 needs a closet to hang his claes in, 
 there's sic a heap o' them. Ay, but 
 that's no a' he's brocht, na, far frae 
 a'." 
 
 ** Dinna gang awa till ye've telt's a' 
 aboot 'im. What mair has he brocht ? " 
 
 " He's brocht a wife," said Hendry, 
 twisting his face curiously. 
 
 ** There's naething surprisin' in that. " 
 
 "Ay, but there is, though. Ye see, 
 Eppie had a letter frae 'im no mony 
 weeks syne, sayin' 'at he wasna deid,
 
 i^aftiiiij tbc iBc6t ot irt. 157 
 
 an' he was comin' hame wi' a fortune. 
 He said, too, 'at he was a single man, 
 an' she's been boastin' aboot that, so 
 ye may think 'at she got a surprise 
 when he hands a wuman oot o' the 
 carriage." 
 
 "An' no a pleasant ane," said Jess. 
 " Had he been leein' ? " 
 
 ' ' Na, he was single when he wrote, 
 an' single when he got the length o' 
 Tilliedrum. Ye see, he fell in wi* the 
 lassie there, an' juist gaed clean aft his 
 heid aboot her. After managin' to 
 withstand the women o' foreign lands 
 for a' thae years, he gaed fair skeer 
 aboot this stocky at Tilliedrum. She's 
 juist seventeen year auld, an' the auld 
 fule sits wi' his airm round her in 
 Eppie's hoose, though they've been 
 mairit this fortnicht. " 
 
 "The doited fule," said Jess. 
 
 Jeames Geogehan and his bride be- 
 came the talk of Thrums, and Jess saw
 
 158 H MinDow in ^brums. 
 
 them from her window several times. 
 The first time she had only eyes for 
 the jacket with fur round it worn by 
 Mrs. Geogehan, but subsequently she 
 took in Jeames. 
 
 "He's tryin' to carry "t aff wi' his 
 heid in the air," she said, "but I can 
 see he's fell shamefaced, an' nae won- 
 der. Ay, I'se wad he s mair ashamed 
 o't in his heart than she is. It's an 
 awful like thing o' a lassie to marry an 
 auld man. She had dune't for the 
 siller. Ay, there's pounds' worth o' fur 
 aboot that jacket." 
 
 "They say she had siller hersel'/' 
 said Tibbie Birse. 
 
 " Dinna tell me," said Jess. " I ken 
 by her wy o' carryin' hersel' 'at she 
 never had a jacket like that afore." 
 
 Eppie was not the only person in 
 Thrums whom this m.arriao;-e enraged. 
 Stories had long been alive of Jeames' 
 fortune, which his cousins' children
 
 /IftaWtiQ tbc J6c6t ot "fft. 159 
 
 were some day to divide among them- 
 selves, and as a consequence these 
 young men and women looked on ]\Irs. 
 Geogehan as a thief. 
 
 " Dinna bring the wife to our hoose, 
 Jeames, " one of them told him, "for 
 we would be fair ashamed to hae her. 
 We used to hae a respect for yer name, 
 so we couldna look her i' the face." 
 
 ** She's mair like yer dochter than 
 yer wife, " said another. 
 
 * ' Na, " said a third, ' ' naebody could 
 mistak her for your dochter. She's 
 ower young-like for that." 
 
 "Wi' the siller you'll leave her, 
 Jeames," Tammas Haggart told him, 
 ''she'll get a younger man for her sec- 
 ond venture. " 
 
 All this was very trying to the new- 
 ly-marriea man, who was thirsting 
 for sympathy. Hendry was the per- 
 son whom he took into his confidence. 
 
 "It may hae been foolish at my
 
 i6o B "CQinDow in ^brume, 
 
 time o' life," Hendry reported him to 
 have said, ''but I couldna help it. If 
 they juist kent her better they couldna 
 but see 'at she's a terrible takkin' crit- 
 tur." 
 
 Jeames was generous ; indeed, he 
 had come home with the intention of 
 scattering largess. A beggar met him 
 one day on the brae, and got a shilling 
 from him. She was waving her arms 
 triumphantly as she passed Hendry's 
 house, and Leeby got the story from 
 her. 
 
 "Eh, he's a fine man that, an' a saft 
 ane, " the woman said. ' ' I juist speired 
 at 'im hoo his bonny wife was, an' he 
 cot wi' a shillin' ! " 
 
 Leeby did not keep this news to her- 
 self, and soon it was through the town. 
 Jeames' face began to brighten. 
 
 "They're comin' round to a mair 
 sensible wy o' lookin' at things," he 
 told Hendry. "I was walkin' wi' the
 
 /nbakins tbe JBest ot Ht, i6i 
 
 wife i' the bury in '-ground yesterday^ 
 an' we met Kitty McQueen. She was 
 ane o' the warst agin me at first, 
 but shetelt me i' the buryin'-ground 'at 
 when a man marrit he should please 
 'imsel'. Oh, they're comin' round." 
 
 What Kitty told Jess was : 
 
 " I minded o' the tinkler wuman 'at 
 he gae a shillin' to, so I thocht I would 
 butter up at the auld fule too. Weel, 
 I assure ye, I had nae suner said 'at 
 he was rale wise to marry wha he likit 
 than he slips a pound note into my 
 hand. Ou, Jess, we've ta'en the wrang 
 wy wi' Jeames. I've telt a' my bairns 
 'at if they meet him they're to praise 
 the wife terrible, an' I'm far mista'en if 
 that doesna mean five shillin's to ilka 
 aneo' them." 
 
 Jean Whamond got a pound note for 
 saying that Jeames' wife had an un- 
 common pretty voice, and Davit Lunan 
 had ten shillings for a judicious word 
 II
 
 1 62 B liminDow in Ebrume. 
 
 about her attractive manners. Tibbie 
 Birse invited the newly-married couple 
 to tea (one pound). 
 
 " They're takkin' to her, they're tak- 
 kin' to her," Jeames said, gleefully. 
 "I kent they would come round in 
 time. Ay, even my mother, 'at was 
 sae mad at first, sits for hours noo 
 aside her, haudin' her hand. They're 
 juist inseparable." 
 
 The time came when we had INIr. 
 and Mrs. Geogehan and Eppie to tea.. 
 
 "It's true enough," Leeby ran ben 
 to tell Jess, "'at Eppie an' the wife's 
 fond o' ane another. I wouldna hae 
 believed it o' Eppie if I hadna seen it, 
 but I assure ye they sat even at the 
 tea-table haudin' ane another's hands. 
 I waurant they're doin't this meen- 
 ute." 
 
 "I wasna born on a Sabbath," re- 
 torted Jess. " Na, na, dinna tell me 
 Eppies fond o' her. Tell Eppie to
 
 /IRaklnfl tbc JBcst ot 1ft. 163 
 
 come but to the kitchen when the tea's 
 ower. " 
 
 Jess and Eppie had half an hour's 
 conversation alone, and then our 
 guests left. 
 
 ''It's a riclit guid thini^/' said Hen- 
 dry, '*'at Eppie has ta'en sic a notion 
 o' the wife." 
 
 ' ' Ou, ay, ■' said Jess. 
 
 Then Hendry hobbled out of the 
 house. 
 
 "What said Eppie to ye .^ " Leeby 
 asked her mother. 
 
 "Juist what I expeckit,"' Jess an- 
 swered. " Ye see, she's dependent on 
 Jeames, so she has to butter up at 
 him." 
 
 " Did she say onything aboot haudin' 
 the wife's hand sae fond-like ? " 
 
 "Ay, she said it was an awfu' trial 
 to her, an' 'at it sickened her to see 
 Jeames an' the wife baith believin' "at 
 she likit to do't."
 
 1 64 21 liminDow in ^brunts. 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 VISITORS AT THE MANSE. 
 
 On brino-ins: home his bride, the 
 minister showed her to us, and we 
 thought she. would do when she real- 
 ized that she was not the minister. 
 She was a grand lady from Edinburgh, 
 though very frank, and we simple folk 
 amused her a good deal, especially 
 when we were sitting cowed in the 
 manse parlor drinking a dish of tea 
 with her, as happened to Leeby, her 
 father, and me, three days before 
 Jamie came home. 
 
 Leeby had refused to be drawn into 
 conversation, like one who knew her 
 place, yet all her actions were genteel 
 and her monosyllabic replies in the
 
 IDiaitors at tbe /Bbanse. 165 
 
 Englishy tongue, as of one who was, 
 after all, a little above the common. 
 When the minister's wife asked her 
 whether she took sugar and cream, she 
 said politely, '* If you please " (though 
 she did not take sugar), a reply that 
 contrasted with Hendry's equally well- 
 intended answer to the same question. 
 "I'm no partikler," was what Hendry 
 said. 
 
 Hendry had left home glumly, de- 
 claring that the white collar Jess had 
 put on him would throttle him ; but 
 her feikieness ended in his surrender, 
 and he was looking unusually perjink. 
 Had not his daughter been present he 
 would have been the most at ease of 
 the company, but her manners were 
 too fine not to make an impression 
 upon one who knew her on her every- 
 day behavior, and she had also ways 
 of bringing Hendry to himself by a 
 touch beneath the table. It was in
 
 i66 B *Mm&ow in tTbrums, 
 
 church that Leeby brought to perfec- 
 tion her manner of looking after her 
 father. When he had confidence in 
 the preacher's soundness, he would 
 sometimes have slept in his pew if 
 Leeby had not had a watchful foot. 
 She wakened him in an instant, while 
 still looking modestly at the pulpit ; 
 however reverently he might try to 
 fall over, Leeby's foot went out. She 
 was such an artist that I never caught 
 her in the act. All I knew for certain 
 was that, now and then, Hendry sud- 
 denly sat up. 
 
 The ordeal was over when Leeby 
 w^ent upstairs to put on her things. 
 After tea Hendry had become bolder 
 in talk, his subject being ministerial. 
 He had an extraordinary knowledge, 
 got no one knew where, of the matri- 
 monial affairs of all the ministers of 
 these parts, and his stories about them 
 ended frequently with a chuckle. He
 
 Disitors at tbc /IRansc. 167 
 
 always took it for granted that a 
 minister's marriage was womanhoods 
 great triumph, and that the particuhir 
 woman who got him must be very- 
 clever. Some of his tales were even 
 more curious than he thought them, 
 such as the one Leeby tried to inter- 
 rupt by saying we must be going. 
 
 "There's ]\Ir. Pennycuick, noo, " 
 said Hendry, shaking his head in 
 wonder at what he had to tell ; 
 "him 'at's minister at Tilliedrum. 
 Weel, when he was a probationer he 
 was michty poor, an' ane day he 
 was walkin' into Thrums frae Glen 
 Quharity, an' he taks a rest at a little 
 housey on the road. The fowk didna 
 ken him ava, but they saw he was a 
 minister, an' the lassie was sorry to 
 see him wi' sic an auld hat. What 
 think ye she did ? " 
 
 "Come away, father," said Leeby, 
 re-entering the parlor ; but Hendry 
 was now in full pursuit of his story.
 
 i68 B WinOow In ITbrums. 
 
 'Til tell ye what she did," he con- 
 tinued. "Shejuist took his hat awa, 
 an' put her father's new ane in its place, 
 an' Mr. Pennycuick never kent the 
 differ till he landed in Thrums. It 
 was terrible kind o' her. Ay, but the 
 auld man would be in a michty rage 
 when he found she had swappit the 
 hats." 
 
 "Come away," said Leeby, still 
 politely, though she was burning to 
 tell her mother how Hendry had dis- 
 graced them. 
 
 "The minister," said Hendry, turn- 
 ing his back on Leeby, " didna forget 
 the lassie. Na, as sune as he got a 
 kirk, he married her. Ay, she got her 
 reward. He married her. It was 
 rale noble of 'im." 
 
 I do not know what Leeby said to 
 Hendry when she got him beyond the 
 manse gate, for I stayed behind to talk 
 to the minister. As it turned out, the
 
 IDleftors at tbe /iRanse. 169 
 
 minister's wife did most of the talking, 
 smiling good-humoredly at country 
 gawkiness the while. 
 
 "Yes," she said, "I am sure I 
 shall like Thrums, though those teas 
 to the congregation are a little trying. 
 Do you know. Thrums is the only 
 place I was ever in where it struck 
 me that the men are cleverer than the 
 women." 
 
 She told us why. 
 
 "Well, to-night affords a case in 
 point. Mr. McQumpha was quite 
 brilliant, was he not, in comparison 
 with his daughter ? Really, she seemed 
 so put out at being at the manse that 
 she could not raise her eyes. I ques- 
 tion if she would know me again, and 
 I am sure she sat in the room as one 
 blindfolded. I left her in the bedroom 
 a minute, and I assure you, when I 
 returned she was still standing on the 
 same spot in the center of the floor."
 
 lyo B liQinDow in ^brumg» 
 
 I pointed out that Leeby had been 
 awestruck. 
 
 " I suppose so, '' she said; "but it 
 is a pity she cannot make use of her 
 eyes, if not of her tongue. Ah, the 
 Thrums women are good, I beHeve, 
 but their wits are sadly in need of 
 sharpening. I dare say it comes of 
 living in so small a place." 
 
 I overtook Leeby on the brae, aware, 
 as I saw her alone, that it had been 
 her father whom I passed talking to 
 Tammas Haggart in the square. Hen- 
 dry stopped to have what he called a 
 tove with any likely person he encoun- 
 tered, and, indeed, though he and I 
 often took a walk on Saturdays, I gener- 
 ally lost him before we were clear of 
 the town. 
 
 In a few moments Leeby and I were 
 at home to give Jess the news. 
 
 " Whaur's yer father.? " asked Jess, 
 as if Hendry's way of dropping behind 
 was still unknown to her.
 
 IDisitore at tbc /llbansc. 171 
 
 " Ou, I left him speakin' to Gavin 
 Birse, " said Leeby. " 1 daur say he's 
 awa to some hoose. " 
 
 " It's no very silvendy(safe) his com- 
 in' ower the brae by himsel', '' said Jess, 
 adding in a bitter tone of conviction, 
 "but he'll gang in to no hoose as lang 
 as he's so weel dressed. Na, he would 
 think it boastfu'." 
 
 I sat down to a book by the kitchen 
 fire ; but, as Leeby became communi- 
 cative, I read less and less. While she 
 spoke she was baking bannocks with 
 all the might of her, and Jess, leaning 
 forward in her chair, was arranging 
 them in a semicircle round the fire. 
 
 "Na," was the first remark of 
 Leeby 's that came between me and 
 my book, " it is no new furniture." 
 
 ' ' But there was three cart-loads o't, 
 Leeby, sent on frae Edinbory. Tibbie 
 Birse helpit to lift it in, and she said 
 the parlor furniture beat a'. "
 
 172 B TldinDow in ^brums. 
 
 " Ou, it's substantial, but it is no new. 
 I sepad it had been bocht cheap second- 
 hand, for the chair I had was terrible 
 scratched like, an' what's mair, the 
 airm-chair was a heap shinier than 
 the rest." 
 
 ''Ay, ay, I wager it had been new 
 stuffed. Tibbie said the carpet cowed 
 for grandeur." 
 
 " Oh, I didna deny it's a guid car- 
 pet ; but if it's been turned once it's 
 been turned half a dozen times, so it's 
 far frae new. Ay, an' forby, it was 
 rale threadbare aneath the table, so ye 
 may be sure they've been cuttin't an' 
 puttin' the worn pairt whaur it would 
 be least seen." 
 
 ''They say 'at there's twa grand gas 
 brackets i' the parlor, an' a wonderfu' 
 gasoliery i' the dinin'-room. " 
 
 "We wasna i' the dinin'-room, so I 
 ken naething aboot the gasoliery ; but 
 I'll tell ye what the gas brackets is. I
 
 IDlaftors at tbe /iRansc. 173 
 
 recognized them inimeditly. Ye mind 
 the auld gasoliery i' the dinin'-room 
 had twa lichts ? Ay, then, the parlor 
 brackets is made oot o' the auld gaso- 
 liery. '*' 
 
 " Weel, Leeby, as sure as ye're stand- 
 in' there, that passed through my head 
 as sune as Tibbie mentioned them ! " 
 
 " There s nae doot about it. Ay, I 
 was in ane o' the bedrooms, too ! " 
 
 ' ' It would be grand ? '' 
 
 " I wouldna say 'at it was partikler 
 grand, but there was a great mask 
 (quantity) o' things in't, an' near every- 
 thing was covered wi' cretonne. But 
 the chairs dinna match. There was a 
 very bonny-painted cloth alang the 
 chimley — what they call a mantelpiece 
 border, I warrant." 
 
 *' Sal, I've often wondered what they 
 was. " 
 
 " Weel, I assure ye they winna be ill 
 to mak, for the border was juist nailed
 
 174 21 'MinOow in ^brums. 
 
 upon a board laid on the chimley. 
 There's naething to hender's makkin' 
 ane for the room." 
 
 ''Ay, we could sew something on 
 the border instead o' paintin' 't. The 
 room lookit weel, ye say? " 
 
 ''Yes, but it was economically fur- 
 nished. There was nae carpet below 
 the wax-cloth ; na, there was nane be- 
 low the bed either. " 
 
 " Was't a grand bed.'' " 
 
 "It had a fell lot o' brass aboot it, 
 but there was juist one pair o' blankets. 
 I thocht it was gey shabby, ha'en the 
 ewer a different pattern frae the basin ; 
 ay, an" there was juist a poker in the 
 fireplace — there was nae tangs.*' 
 
 "Yea, yea; they'll hae but one set 
 o' bedroom fire-irons. The tangs'll be 
 in anither room. Tod, thafs no sae 
 michty grand for Edinbory. ^Vhat like 
 was she hersel' ? " 
 
 " Ou, very ladylike and saft-spoken.
 
 IDleitors at tbe /Hbansc. 175 
 
 She's a canty body an' frank. She 
 wears her hair low on the left side to 
 hod (hide) a scar, an' there's twa warts 
 on her richt hand." 
 
 "There had na been a fire i' the 
 parlor ? " 
 
 "No, but it was ready to licht. 
 There was sticks and paper in't. The 
 paper was oot o' a dressmaker's jour- 
 nal. " 
 
 "Ye say so.? She'll mak her ain 
 frocks, I sepad." 
 
 When Hendry entered to take off 
 his collar and coat before sitting down 
 to his evening- meal of hot water, 
 porter, and bread mixed in a bowl, 
 Jess sent me off to the attic. As I 
 climbed the stairs I remembered that 
 the minister's wife thought Leeby in 
 need of sharpening.
 
 176 B miuDow in Q;bcum6. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 HOW GAVIN BIRSE PUT IT TO MAG LOWNIE. 
 
 In a wet day the rain gathered in 
 blobs on the road that passed our 
 garden. Then it crawled into the 
 cart-tracks until the road was streaked 
 with water. Lastly, the water gath- 
 ered in heavy yellow pools. If the 
 on-ding still continued, clods of earth 
 toppled from the garden dyke into the 
 ditch. 
 
 On such a day, when even the dulse- 
 man had gone into shelter, and the 
 woman scudded by with their wrappers 
 over their heads, came Gavin Birse to 
 our door. Gavin, who was the Glen 
 Quharity post, was still young, but 
 had never been quite the same man
 
 (3arin JBirse anO /IBa0 Xownie. 177 
 
 since some amateurs in the glen ironed 
 his back for rheumatism. I thought 
 he had called to have a crack with me. 
 He sent his compliments up to the 
 attic, however, by Leeby, and would 
 I come and be a witness ? 
 
 Gavin came up and explained. He 
 had taken off his scarf and thrust it 
 into his pocket, lest the rain should 
 take the color out of it. His boots 
 cheeped, and his shoulders had risen 
 to his ears. He stood steaming before 
 my fire. 
 
 " If it's no ower muckle to ask ye," 
 he said, "I would like ye for a wit- 
 ness." 
 
 "A witness ! But for what do you 
 need a witness, Gavin ? " 
 
 " I want ye," he said, ''to come wi* 
 me to Mag's, and be a witness." 
 
 Gavin and Mag Birse had been en- 
 gaged for a year or more. Mag was 
 the daughter of Janet Ogilvy, who was 
 12
 
 178 B MinOow in ^brums. 
 
 best remembered as the body that took 
 the hill (that is, wandered about it) 
 for twelve hours on the day Mr. Dish- 
 art, the Auld Licht minister, accepted 
 a call to another church. 
 
 "You don't mean to tell me, Gavin," 
 I asked, ' ' that your marriage is to take 
 place to day ? " 
 
 By the twist of his mouth I saw that 
 he was only deferring a smile. 
 
 *' Far frae that," he said. 
 
 *' Ah, then, you have quarreled, and 
 I am to speak up for you ? " 
 
 " Na, na, " he said, "I dinna want 
 ye to do that above all things. It 
 would be a favor if ye could gie me 
 a bad character. " 
 
 This beat me, and, I dare say, my 
 face showed it. 
 
 "I'm no' juist what ye would call 
 anxious to marry Mag noo," said 
 Gavin, without a tremor. 
 
 I told him to go on.
 
 (5avin JBirsc ant) /Dbaa Xownic. 179 
 
 "There's a lassie oot at Craigie- 
 buckle, "he explained, " workin' on the 
 farm — Jeanie Luke by name. Ye may 
 hae seen her ? " 
 
 ' ' What of her ? " I asked, severely. 
 
 '* Weel," said Gavin, still unabashed, 
 "I'm thinkin' noo 'at I would rather 
 hae her." 
 
 Then he stated his case more fully. 
 
 "Ay, I thocht I liked Mag on- 
 common till I saw Jeanie, an' I like her 
 fine yet, but I prefer the other ane. 
 That state o' matters canna gang on for- 
 ever, so I came into Thrums the day 
 to settle't one wy or another." 
 
 "And how," I asked, " do you pro- 
 pose going about it.? It is a some- 
 what delicate business." 
 
 " Ou, I see nae great difficulty in't. 
 I'll speir at Mag, blunt oot, if she'll let 
 me aff. Yes, I'll put it to her plain." 
 
 "You're sure Jeanie would take 
 you ? "
 
 i8o H *Mint)ow in ^brums. 
 
 ''Ay; oh, there's nae fear o' that." 
 
 ** But if Mag keeps you to your bar- 
 gain ? " 
 
 " Weel, in that case there's nae harm 
 done." 
 
 "You are in a great hurry, Gavin ? " 
 
 "Ye may say that ; but I want to 
 be married. The wifie I lodge wi* can- 
 na last lang, an' I would like to settle 
 doon in some place." 
 
 " So you are on your way to Mag's 
 now ? " 
 
 ' ' Ay, we'll get her in atween twal' 
 and ane. " 
 
 *'0h, yes; but why do you want 
 me to go with you ? " 
 
 "1 want ye for a witness. If she 
 winna let me aff, weel an' guid ; an' 
 if she will, it's better to hae a w^itness in 
 case she should go back on her word." 
 
 Gavin made his proposal briskly, 
 and as coolly as if he were only asking 
 me to go fishing ; but I did not ac-
 
 Gavin J6irsc and /iRao Xownie. i8i 
 
 company him to ^la^'s. He left the 
 house to look for another witness, and 
 about an hour afterward Jess saw him 
 pass with Tammas Haggart. Tarn mas 
 cried in during the evening to tell us 
 how the mission prospered. 
 
 **Mind ye," said Tammas, a drop of 
 water hanging to the point of his nose, 
 *'I disclaim all responsibility in the 
 business. I ken Mag weel for a thrifty, 
 respectable woman, as her mither was 
 afore her, an' so I said to Gavin when 
 he came to speir me."' 
 
 '*Ay, mony a pirn has'Lisbeth filled 
 to me," said Hendry, settling down to 
 a reminiscence. 
 
 ''No to be ower hard on Gavin," 
 continued Tammas, forestalling Hen- 
 dry, ** he took what I said in guid 
 part ; but aye when I stopped speakin' 
 to draw breath, he says, ' The question 
 is, will ye come wi' me ? ' He was 
 michty made up in 's mind."
 
 i82 B minDow in ^brums. 
 
 " Weel, ye went \vi' him, "suggested 
 Jess, who wanted to bring Tammas to 
 the point. 
 
 "Ay," said the stone-breaker, ''but 
 no in sic a hurry as that. " 
 
 He worked his mouth round and 
 round, to clear the course as it were 
 for a sarcasm. 
 
 " Fowk often say," he continued, 
 "'at "am quick beyond the ordinar' in 
 seeing' the humorous side o" things. " 
 
 Here Tammas paused and looked 
 at us. 
 
 " So ye are, Tammas," said Hendry, 
 "Losh, ye mind hoo ye saw the hu- 
 morous side o' me wearin' a pair o' boots 
 'at wisna marrows ! No, the ane had 
 a toe-piece on, an' the other hadna." 
 
 "Ye juist wore them sometimes 
 when ye was delvin'," broke in Jess ; 
 "ye have as guid a pair o' boots as 
 ony in Thrums." 
 
 "Ay, but I had worn them," said
 
 ©apiu J6irsc anD ffbng Xownle. 185 
 
 Hendry, "at odd times for mair than. 
 a year, an' I had never seen the hu- 
 morous side o' them. Weel, as fac as 
 death (here he addressed me). Tam- 
 mas had juist seen them twa or three 
 times when he saw the humorous side 
 o" them. Syne I saw their humorous 
 side, too, but no till Tammas pointed 
 it oot." 
 
 ' " That was nacthing, "' said Tammas, 
 " naething ava to some things I've 
 done." 
 
 ' * But what aboot j\Iag ? " said Leeby. 
 
 "Wewasna that length, was we?" 
 said Tammas. " Na, we was speakin' 
 aboot the humorous side. Ay, wait a 
 wee, I didna mention the humorous 
 side for naething. " 
 
 He paused to reflect. 
 
 " Oh, yes," he said at last, brighten- 
 ing up. "I was sayin' to ye hoo 
 quick I was to see the humorous side 
 o' onything. Ay, then, what made me
 
 1 84 ^ MinDow in ^brums. 
 
 say that was 'at in a clink (flash) I saw 
 the humorous side o' Gavin's position." 
 
 "Man, man," said Hendry, admir- 
 ingly, ' ' an' what is 't ? " 
 
 "Oh, it's this: there's something- 
 humorous in speirin' a woman to let 
 ye aff so as ye can be married to another 
 woman. " 
 
 "I daur say there is," said Hendry, 
 doubtfully. 
 
 "Did she let him aff.? " asked Jess, 
 taking the words out of Leeby's mouth. 
 
 "I'm comin' to that," saidTammas. 
 "Gavin proposes to me after I had 
 ha'en my laugh " 
 
 "Yes," cried Hendry, banging the 
 table with his fist, ' ' it has a humorous 
 side. Ye're richt again, Tammas." 
 
 "I wish ye wadna blatter (beat) the 
 table," said Jess, and then Tammas 
 proceeded : 
 
 "Gavin wanted me to tak paper an' 
 ink an' a pen wi' me, to write the pro-
 
 (Bavin Sirse anD /Ibag Xownfe. 185 
 
 ceedin's doon, but I said, 'Na, na, I'll 
 tak paper, but nae ink nor nae pen, 
 for there'll be ink an' a pen there.' 
 That was what I said. " 
 
 "An' did she let him aff?" asked 
 Leeby. 
 
 ' ' Weel, " said Tammas, "aff we goes 
 to IVIag's hoose, an' sure enough Mag 
 was in. She was alane, too ; so Gavin, 
 no to waste time, juist sat doon for 
 politeness' sake, an' sune rises up 
 again ; an' says he, ' Marget Lownie, I 
 hae a solemn question to speir at ye, 
 namely this, will you, Marget Lownie, 
 let me, Gavin Birse, aff .? ' " 
 
 "Mag would start at that ? " 
 
 "Sal, she was braw an' cool. I 
 thocht she maun hae got wind o' his 
 intentions aforehand, for she juist re- 
 plies, quiet-like, ' Hoo do ye want aff, 
 Gavin } ' 
 
 " 'Because,' says he, like a book, 
 'my affections has undergone a change.'
 
 1 86 B MinDow In G:brum6. 
 
 " *Ye mean Jean Luke/ says Mag. 
 
 " ' That is wha I mean,' says Gavin, 
 very straitforrard. " 
 
 ''But she didna let him aff, did 
 she ? " 
 
 "Na, she wasna the kind. Says 
 she, ' I wonder to hear ye, Gavin, but 
 'am no goin' to agree to naething o' 
 that sort/ 
 
 " 'Think it ower, ' says Gavin. 
 
 " ' Na, my mind's made up/ said 
 she. 
 
 " ' Ye would sune get anither man,* 
 he says, earnestly. 
 
 " ' Hoo do I ken that .'* ' she speirs, 
 rale sensibly, I thocht, for men's no 
 sae easy to get. 
 
 " 'Am sure o' 't,' Gavin says, wi* 
 michty conviction in his voice, ' for 
 ^ ye're bonny to look at, an' weel kent 
 for bein' a guid body. ' 
 
 " 'Ay,' says Mag, ' I'm glad ye like 
 me, Gavin, for ye have to tak me/ "
 
 0apin 36\X6C an^ /Iftag Xownic. 187 
 
 "That put a clincher on him," inter- 
 rupted Hendry. 
 
 "He was loth to gie in," replied 
 Tammas, so he says, ' Ye think 'am a 
 fine character, IMarget Lownie, but 
 yc're very far mista'en. I wouldna 
 wonder but what I was lossin' my 
 place some o' thae days, an' syne 
 whaur would ye be ? — IMarget Lownie, * 
 he goes on, 'am nat'rally lazy an' fond 
 o' the drink. As sure as ye stand there, 
 'am a reg'lar deevil ! ' " 
 
 "That was strong language, " said 
 Hendry, but he would be wantin' to 
 fleg (frighten) her ? '' 
 
 "Juistso, but he didna manage *t, 
 for Mag says : * We a' hae oor faults, 
 Gavin, an' deevil or no deevil, ye're 
 the man for me ! " 
 
 "Gavin thocht a bit," continued 
 Tammas, "an' syne he tries her on a 
 new tack. ' ^Nlarget Lownie,' he says, 
 * ye're father's an auld man noo, an' he
 
 i88 B WinDow in G:brums. 
 
 has naebody but yersel' to look after 
 him. I'm thinkin' it would be kind o' 
 cruel o' me to tak ye awa frae him ? ' " 
 
 " Mag wouldna be ta'en in wi' that ; 
 she wasna born on a Sawbath," said 
 Jess, using one of her favorite saymgs. 
 
 "She wasna," answered Tammas. 
 "Says she, ' Hae nae fear on that 
 score, Gavin ; my father's fine willin' 
 to spare me ! ' " 
 
 "An' that ended it?" 
 
 "Ay, that ended it." 
 
 "Did ye tak it doon in writin' .? " 
 asked Hendry. 
 
 "There was nae need," said Tam- 
 mas, handing round his snuff-mull. 
 "No, I never touched paper. When 
 I saw the thing was settled, I left them 
 to their coortin'. They're to tak a look 
 at Snecky Hobart's auld hoose the 
 nicht It's to let."
 
 Zbc Son from XonDon. 189 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE SON FROM LONDON. 
 
 In the spring of the year there used 
 to come to Thrums a painter from 
 nature, whom Hendry spoke of as the 
 drawer. He lodged with Jess in my 
 attic, and when the weavers met him 
 they said, ''Weel, drawer," and then 
 passed on, grinning. Tammas Hag- 
 gart was the first to say this. 
 
 The drawer was held a poor man 
 because he straggled about the coun- 
 try looking for subjects for his draws ; 
 and Jess, as was her way, gave him 
 many comforts for which she would 
 not charge. That, I dare say, was why 
 he painted for her a little portrait of 
 Jamie. When the drawer came back
 
 190 U lldinOow in ^brums. 
 
 to Thrums he always found the paint- 
 ing in a frame in the room. Here I 
 must make a confession about Jess. 
 She did not in her secret mind think 
 the portrait quite the thing, and as soon 
 as the drawer departed it was removed 
 from the frame to make way for a cal- 
 endar. The deception was very inno- 
 cent, Jess being anxious not to hurt 
 the donors feelings. 
 
 To those who have the artists eye, 
 the picture, which hangs in my school- 
 house now, does not show a hand- 
 some lad, Jamie being short and dap- 
 per, w^th straw-colored hair, and a 
 chin that ran away into his neck. 
 That is how I once regarded him, but 
 I have little heart for criticism of those 
 I like, and, despite his madness for a 
 season, of which, alas ! I shall have to 
 tell, lam always Jamie's friend. Even 
 to hear any one disparaging the ap- 
 pearance of Jess' son is to me a pain.
 
 ^be Son from XonDon. 191 
 
 All Jess" acquaintances knew that in 
 the beginning of every month a regis- 
 tered letter reached her from London, 
 To her it was not a matter to keep 
 secret. She was proud that the help 
 she and Hendry needed in the gloam- 
 ing of their lives should come from her 
 beloved son, and the neighbors es- 
 teemed Jamie because he was good 
 to his mother. Jess had more humor 
 than any other woman I have known, 
 while Leeby w^as but sparingly en- 
 dowed ; yet, as the month neared its 
 close, it was the daughter who put on 
 the humorist, Jess thinking money too 
 serious a thing to jest about. Then if 
 Leeby had a moment for gossip, as 
 when ironing a dickey for Hendry, 
 and the iron was a trifle too hot, she 
 would look archly at me before address- 
 ing her mother in these words : 
 " Will he send, think ye ? " 
 Jess, who had a conviction that he
 
 192 B TlxainDow in ^Drums. 
 
 would send, affected surprise at the 
 question. 
 
 "Will Jamie send this month, do ye 
 mean ? Na, oh, losh no ! it's no to be ex- 
 peckit. Na, he couldna do"t this time." 
 
 ' ' That's what ye aye say, but he aye 
 sends. Yes, an' vara weel ye ken 'at 
 he will send." 
 
 ''Na, na, Leeby ; dinna let me ever 
 think o' sic a thing this month." 
 
 "As if ye wasna thinkin' o't day an' 
 nicht ! " 
 
 "He's terrible mindfu', Leeby, but 
 he doesna hae't. Na, no this month ; 
 mebbe next month." 
 
 ' ' Do you mean to tell me, mother, 
 'at ye'U no be up oot o' yer bed on Mon- 
 unday an hour afore yer usual time, 
 lookin' for the post .? " 
 
 "Na, no this time. I may be up, 
 an' tak a look for 'im, but no expeckin' 
 a registerdy ; na na, that wouldna be 
 reasonable."
 
 Cbe Son trom XonOon. 193 
 
 " Reasonable here, reasonable there, 
 up you'll be, keckin* (peering) through 
 the blind to see if the post's comin', ay, 
 an' what's mair, the post will come, 
 and a registerdy in his hand wi' fifteen 
 shillings in't at the least." 
 
 *' Dinna say fifteen, Lceby ; I would 
 never think o' sic a sum. Mebbe 
 tivc " 
 
 *' Five ! I wonder to hear ye. Vara 
 weel you ken ' at since he had twenty- 
 twa shillin's in the ^eek he's never 
 sent less than half a sovereign." 
 
 "No, but we canna expcck " 
 
 " Expeck I Xo, but it's no cxpeck — 
 it's get. " 
 
 On the Monday morning when I 
 came downstairs, Jess was in her 
 chair by the window, beaming, apiece 
 of paper ni her hand. I did not require 
 to be told about it, but I was told. Jess 
 had been up before Leeby could get 
 the fire lit. with great difliculty reach- 
 es
 
 194 ^ "QClinDow in ^brums. 
 
 ing the window in her bare feet, and 
 many a time had she said that the post 
 must be by. 
 
 " Havers," said Leeby, "he winna 
 be for an hour yet. Come awa' back 
 to your bed." 
 
 "Na, he maun be by/' Jess would 
 say in a few minutes ; "ou, we couldna 
 expeck this month." 
 
 So it went on until Jess' hand shook 
 the blind. 
 
 " He's comin', Leeby, he's comin'. 
 He'll no hae naething, na, I couldna 
 expeck He's by ! " 
 
 "I dinna believe it," cried Leeby, 
 running to the window, " he's juist at 
 his tricks again." 
 
 This was in reference to a way our 
 saturnine post had of pretending that 
 he brought no letters and passing the 
 door. Then he turned back. '']Mis- 
 tress McQumpha," he cried, and whis- 
 tled.
 
 Zbc Son trom ILon^on. 
 
 195 
 
 "Run, Leeby, run/' said Jess ex- 
 citedly. 
 
 Leeby hastened to the door, and 
 came back witli a reg-istcred letter. 
 
 " Registerdy/'she cried in tri-:mph, 
 and Jess, with fond hands, opened the 
 letter. By the time I came down the 
 money was hid away in a box beneath 
 the bed, where not even Leeby could 
 find it, and Jess was on her chair hug- 
 ging the letter. She preserved all her 
 registered envelopes. 
 
 This was the iirst time I had been in 
 Thrums when Jamie was expected for 
 his ten days* holiday, and for a week 
 we discussed little else. Though he 
 had written saying when he would sail 
 for Dundee, there was quite a possi- 
 bility of his appearing on the brae at 
 any moment, for he liked to take Jess 
 and Leeby by surprise. Hendry there 
 was no surprising, unless he was in 
 the mood for it, and the coolness of
 
 him was one of Jess' grievances. Just 
 two years earlier Jamie came north a 
 week before his time, and his father 
 saw him from the window. Instead of 
 crying out in amazement or hacking 
 his face, for he was shaving at the time, 
 Hendry cahiily wiped his razor on the 
 window-sill, and said : 
 
 "Ay, there's Jamie." 
 
 Jamie was a little disappointed at 
 being seen in this way, for he had 
 been looking forward for four-and-forty 
 hours to repeating the sensation of 
 the year before. On that occasion he 
 had got to the door unnoticed, where 
 he stopped to listen. I dare say he 
 checked his br ath, the better to catch 
 his mother's voice, for Jess being an 
 invalid, Jamie thought of her first. He 
 had Leeby sworn to write the truth 
 about her, but many an anxious hour 
 he had on hearing that she was " com- 
 plaining fell (considerably) about her
 
 ^bc Son trom XonDon. 197 
 
 back the day," Leeby, as he knew, be- 
 ing frightened to akirm him. Jamie, 
 too, had given his promise to tell 
 exactly how he was keeping, but often 
 he wrote that he was "fine "when 
 Jess had her doubts. When Hendry 
 wrote he spread himself over the table, 
 and said that Jess was "juist about 
 it." or " aff and on," which does not 
 tell much. So Jamie hearkened pain- 
 fully at the door, and by and by heard 
 his mother say to Leeby that she was 
 sure the teapot was running out. Per- 
 haps that voice was as sweet to him as 
 the music of a maiden to her lover, but 
 Jamie did not rush into his mother's 
 arms. Jess has told me with a beam- 
 ing face how craftily he behaved. The 
 old man, of lungs that shook Thrums 
 by night, who went from door to door 
 selling firewood, had a way of shoving 
 doors rudely open and crying : 
 
 *' Ony rozetty roots ? " and him Jamie 
 imitated.
 
 198 B MinOow in C^brums. 
 
 " Juist think, "'Jess said as she re- 
 called the incident, " what a startle we 
 got. As we think, Pete kicks open 
 the door and cries oot : ' Ony rozetty 
 roots?' and Leeby says 'No,' and 
 gangs to shut the door. Next minute 
 she screeches, ' What, what, what ! ' 
 and in walks Jamie ! " 
 
 Jess was never able to decide whether 
 it w^as more delightful to be taken aback 
 in this way or to prepare for Jamie. 
 Sudden excitement was bad for her ac- 
 cording to Hendry, who got his medical 
 knowledge second-hand from persons 
 under treatment, but with Jamie's ap- 
 pearance on the threshold Jess' health 
 began to improve. This time he kept 
 to the appointed day, and the house 
 was turned upside down in his honor. 
 Such a polish did Leeby put on the 
 flagons which hung on the kitchen- 
 wall that, passing between them and 
 the window, I thought once I had been
 
 Zbc Son from Xon^on. 199 
 
 struck by lightning. On the morning 
 of the day that was to bring him, Leeby 
 was up at two o'clock, and eight hours 
 before he could possibly arrive Jess 
 had a night-shirt warming for him at 
 the fire. I was no longer anybody, 
 except as a person who could give 
 Jamie advice. Jess told me what I 
 was to say. The only thing he and 
 his mother quarreled about was the 
 underclothing she would swaddle him 
 in, and Jess asked me to back her up 
 in her entreaties. 
 
 ''There's no a doubt,'' she said, 
 "but what it's a hantle caulder here 
 than in London, an' it would be a terri- 
 ble business if he was to tak the cauld." 
 
 Jamie was to sail from London to 
 Dundee, and come on to Thrums from 
 Tilliedrum in the post-cart. The road 
 at that time, however, avoided the 
 brae, and at a certain point Jamie's 
 custom was to alight, and take the
 
 200 B MinDow in ^brums. 
 
 short cut home, along a farm road and 
 up the commonty. Here, too, Hookey 
 Crewe, the post, deposited his pas- 
 senger's box, which Hendry wheeled 
 home in a barrow. Long before the 
 cart had lost sight of Tilliedrum, Jess 
 was at her window. 
 
 ''Tell her Hookey's often late on 
 Monundays," Leeby whispered to me, 
 ''for she'll gang oot o' her mind if she 
 thinks there's onything wrang. " 
 
 Soon Jess was painfully excited, 
 though she sat as still as salt. 
 
 "It maun be yer time," she said, 
 looking at both Leeby and me, for in 
 Thrums we went oot an' met our 
 friends. 
 
 " Hoots," retorted Leeby, trying to 
 be hardy, "Hookey canna be oot o' 
 Tilliedrum yet." 
 
 "He maun hae startit lang syne." 
 
 " I wonder at ye, mother, puttin' 
 yersel' in sic a state. Ye'll be ill when 
 he comes."
 
 Zbc Son from XonDon. 201 
 
 " Na, am no in nae state, Leeby, 
 but there'll no be nae accident, will 
 there ? " 
 
 '* It's most provokin' 'at ye will think 
 'at every time Jamie steps into a ma- 
 chine there'll bean accident Am sure 
 if ye would tak mair after my father, 
 it would be a blessin'. Look hoo cool 
 he is." 
 
 ' ' VVhaur is he, Leeby ? " 
 
 "Oh, I dinna ken. The henmost 
 e I saw him he was layin' doon the 
 law aboot something to T'nowhead. " 
 
 ' ' It's an awfu' wy that he has o' 
 gaen oot without a word. I wouldna 
 wonder 'at he's no bein' in time to 
 meet Jamie, an' that would be a pretty 
 business.*' 
 
 " Od, ye're sure he'll be in braw 
 time. " 
 
 " But he hasna ta'en the barrow wi' 
 him, an' hoo is Jamie's luggage to be 
 brocht up withoot a barrow ? "
 
 202 B Minnow In ^brums. 
 
 "Barrow! He took the barrow to 
 the saw-mill an hour syne to pick it up 
 at Rob Angus' on the wy. '' 
 
 Several times Jess was sure she saw 
 the cart in the distance, and implored 
 us to be off. 
 
 "I'll tak no settle till ye're awa," 
 she said, her face now flushed and her 
 hands working nervously. 
 
 "We've time to gang and come 
 twa or three times yet," remonstrated 
 Leeby ; but Jess gave me so beseech- 
 ing a look that I put on my hat. Then 
 Hendry dandered in to change his coat 
 deliberately, and when the three of us 
 set off, we left Jess with her eye on 
 the door by which Jamie must enter. 
 He was her only son now, and she 
 had not seen him for a year. 
 
 On the way down the commonty, 
 Leeby had the honor of being twice 
 addressed as Miss McQumpha, but her 
 father was Hendry to all, which shows
 
 (Tbc Son from Xon&on. 203 
 
 that we make our social position for 
 ourselves. Hendry looked forward to 
 Jamie's annual appearance only a little 
 less hungrily than Jess, but his pulse 
 still beat regularly. Leeby would 
 have considered it almost wicked to 
 talk of anything except Jamie now, 
 but Hendry cried out comments on the 
 tatties, yesterday s roup, the fall in jute, 
 to everybody he encountered. When 
 he and a crony had their say and 
 parted, it was their custom to continue 
 the conversation in shouts until they 
 were out of hearing. 
 
 Only to Jess at her window was the 
 cart late that afternoon. Jamie jumped 
 from it in the long great-coat that had 
 been new to Thrums the year before, 
 and Hendry said calmly : 
 
 "Ay, Jamie." 
 
 Leeby and Jamie made signs, that 
 they recognized each other as brother 
 and sister, but I was the only one with
 
 204 21 MinDovv in ^brums. 
 
 whom he shook hands. He was 
 smart in his movements and quite the 
 gentleman, but the Thrums ways took 
 hold of him again at once. He even 
 inquired for his mother in a tone that 
 was meant to deceive me into thinking 
 he did not care how she was. 
 
 Hendry would have had a talk out 
 of him on the spot, but was reminded 
 of the luggage. We took the heavy 
 farm road, and soon we were at the 
 saw-mill. I am naturally leisurely, 
 but we climbed the commonty at a 
 stride. Jamie pretended to be calm, 
 but in a dark place I saw him take 
 Leeby's hand, and after that he said 
 not a word. His eyes were fixed on 
 the elbow of the brae, where he would 
 come into sight of his mother's window. 
 Many, many a time, I know, that lad 
 had prayed to God for still another 
 sight of the window with his mother at 
 it. So we came to the corner where
 
 Xlbc Son trom XonDon. 205 
 
 the stile is that Sam'l Dickie jumped in 
 the race for T'nowhead's Bell, and be- 
 fore Jamie was the house of his child- 
 hood and his mother's window, and 
 the fond, anxious face of his mother 
 herself. i\Iy eyes are dull, and I did 
 not see her, but suddenly Jamie cried 
 out, "My mother ! "' and Leeby and I 
 were left behind. When I reached the 
 kitchen Jess was crying, and her son's 
 arms were round her neck. I went 
 away to my attic. 
 
 There was only one other memora- 
 ble event of that day. Jamie had 
 finished his tea, and we all sat round 
 him, listening to his adventures and 
 opinions. He told us how the coun- 
 try should be governed, too, and per- 
 haps put on airs a little. Hendry 
 asked the questions, and Jamie an- 
 swered them as pat as if he and his 
 father were going through the Shorter 
 Catechism. When Jamie told any-
 
 2o6 21 MmDovv in ^brums. 
 
 thing marvelous, as how many tow- 
 els were used at the shop in a day, or 
 that twopence was the charge for a 
 single shave, his father screwed his 
 mouth together as if preparing to 
 whistle, and then instead made a curi- 
 ous clucking noise with his tongue, 
 which was reserved for the expression 
 of absolute amazement. As for Jess, 
 who was given to making much of me, 
 she ignored my remarks and laughed 
 hilariously at jokes of Jamie's which 
 had been received in silence from me a 
 few minutes before. 
 
 Slowly it came to me that Leeby 
 had something on her mind, and that 
 Jamie was talking to her with his eyes. 
 I learned afterwards that they were plot- 
 ting how to get me out of the kitchen, 
 but were too impatient to wait. Thus 
 it was that the great event happened 
 in my presence. Jamie rose and stood 
 near Jess ; I daresay he had planned
 
 XLbc Son from XonDon. 207 
 
 the scene frequently. Then he pro- 
 duced from his pocket a purse, and 
 coolly opened it. Silence fell upon us 
 as we saw that purse. From it he took 
 a neatly folded piece of paper, crumpled 
 it into a ball, and flung- it into Jess' 
 lap. 
 
 I cannot say whether Jess knew 
 what it was. Her hands shook, and 
 for a moment she let the ball of paper 
 lie there. 
 
 " Open't up," cried Leeby, who was 
 in the secret. 
 
 " What is't ? " asked Hendry, draw- 
 ing nearer. 
 
 "It's juist a bit paper Jamie flung at 
 me," said Jess, and then she unfolded 
 it. 
 
 "It's a five-pound note!" cried 
 Hendry. 
 
 "Na, na ; oh, keep us, no," said 
 Jess ; but she knew it was. 
 
 For a time she could not speak.
 
 2o8 B *^inC>ow in ^brums. 
 
 "I canna take it, Jamie," she fal- 
 tered at last. 
 
 But Jamie waved his hand, meaning 
 that it was nothing ; and then, lest he 
 should burst, hurried out into the gar- 
 den, where he walked up and down 
 whistling. May God bless the lad, 
 thought I. I do not know the history 
 of that five-pound note, but well aware 
 I am that it grew slowly out of pence 
 and silver, and that Jamie denied his 
 passions many things for this great 
 hour. His sacrifices watered his young 
 heart and kept it fresh and tender. 
 Let us no longer cheat our consciences 
 by talking of filthy lucre. Money may 
 always be a beautiful thing. It is we 
 who make it grimy.
 
 21 Ijomc for ©cnluses. 209 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 A HOME FOR GENIUSES. 
 
 From hints he had let drop at odd 
 times I knew that Tammas Haggart 
 had a scheme for geniuses, but not 
 until the evening after Jamie's arrival 
 did I get it out of him. Hendry was 
 with Jamie at the fishing, and it came 
 about that Tammas and I had the pig- 
 sty to ourselves. 
 
 " Of course," he said, when we had 
 got a grip of the subject, ' I dount 
 pretend as my ideas is to be followed 
 withoot deeviation, but ondootedly 
 something sh uld be done for gen- 
 iuses, them bein' aboot the only class 
 as we do naething for. Yet they're 
 fowk to be prood o' an' we shouldna 
 14
 
 2IO B MlnDow in G:brums. 
 
 let them overdo the thing, nor run 
 into debt ; na, na. There was Rob- 
 bie Burns, noo, as real a genius as 
 ever " 
 
 At the pig-sty, where we Hked to 
 have more than one topic, we had fre- 
 quently to tempt Tammas away from 
 Burns, 
 
 "Your scheme," I interposed, "is 
 for living geniuses, of course ? " 
 
 " Ay," he said, thoughtfully, '' them 
 'at's gone canna be brocht back. 
 Weel, my idea is 'at a Home should 
 be built for geniuses at the public ex- 
 pense, whaur they could all live the- 
 gither, an' be decently looked after. 
 Na, no in London ; that's no my plan, 
 but I would hae't within an hour's 
 distance o' London, say five mile frae 
 the market-place, an' standin' in a bit 
 garden, whaur the geniuses could walk 
 aboot arm-in-arm, composin' their 
 minds. "
 
 H Ibomc tor ©cniuses. 211 
 
 "You would have the grounds walled 
 in, I suppose, so that the public could 
 not intrude ? " 
 
 ' ' Weel, there's a difficulty there, 
 because, ye'll observe, as the public 
 would support the institootion, they 
 would hae a kind o' richt to look in. 
 How-some-ever, I daur say we could 
 arrange to fling the grounds open to 
 the public once a week on condition 
 'at they didna speak to the geniuses. 
 I'm thinkin' 'at if there was a small 
 chairge for admission the Home could 
 be made self-supportin'. Losh ! to 
 think 'at if there had been sic an insti- 
 tootion in his time a man micht hae 
 sat on the bit dyke and watched Rob- 
 bie Burns danderin' roond the " 
 
 "You would divide the Home into 
 suites of rooms, so that every inmate 
 would have his own apartments ^ 
 
 "Not by no means; na, na. The 
 mair I read aboot geniuses the mair
 
 212 21 TKUlnDow in ^brums, 
 
 clearly I see as their wy o' living alane 
 ower muckle is ane o' the things as 
 breaks doon their health, and makes 
 them meeserable. V the Home they 
 would hae a bedroom apiece, but the 
 parlor an' the other sittin'-rooms would 
 be for all, so as they could enjoy ane 
 another's company. The manage- 
 ment ? Oh, that's aisy. The superin- 
 tendent would be a medical man ap- 
 pointed by Parliament, and he would 
 hae men-servants to do his biddin'." 
 
 *'Not all men-servants, surely? " 
 
 ** Every one o' them. Man, geniuses 
 is no to be trusted wi" womenfolk. 
 No, even Robbie Bu " 
 
 ''So he did ; but would the inmates 
 have to put themselves entirely in the 
 superintendent's hands ? " 
 
 '*Nae doobt; an' they would see it 
 was the wisest thing they could do. 
 He would be careful o' their health, an* 
 send them early to bed as weel as hae
 
 a Ibomc for Ocniuses. 213 
 
 them up at eight sharp. Geniuses' 
 healths is always breakin' doon because 
 of late hours, as in the case o' the lad 
 wha used often to begin his immortal 
 writin's at twal o'clock at nicht, a thing 
 'at would ruin ony constitootion. But 
 the superintendent would see as they 
 had a tasty supper at nine o'clock — 
 something as agreed wi' them. Then 
 for half an hour they would quiet their 
 brains readin' oot aloud, time about, 
 frae sic a book as the ' Pilgrim's Prog- 
 ress,' an' the gas would be turned aff 
 at ten precisely. " 
 
 ' ' When would you have them up in 
 the morning ? " 
 
 "At sax in summer an' seven in 
 winter. The superintendent would 
 see as they were all properly bathed 
 every mornin', cleanliness bein' most 
 important for the preservation o' 
 health." 
 
 "This sounds well ; but suppose a
 
 214 ^ MinDow in ^brums, 
 
 genius broke the rules — lay in bed, for 
 instance, reading by the light of a 
 candle after hours, or refused to take 
 his bath in the morning ? " 
 
 "The superintendent would hae to 
 punish him. The genius would be 
 sent back to his bed, maybe. An' if 
 he lay lang i' the mornin' he would hae 
 to gang withoot his breakfast. " 
 
 ' ' That would be all very well where 
 the inmate only broke the regulations 
 once in a way ; but suppose he were 
 to refuse to take his bath day after day 
 (and, you know, geniuses are said to 
 be eccentric in that particular), what 
 would be done .'' You could not starve 
 him ; geniuses are too scarce." 
 
 ''Na, na ; in a case like that he 
 would hae to be reported to the public. 
 The thing would hae to come afore 
 the Hoose of Commons. Ay, the 
 superintendent would get a member 
 o' the Opposeetion to ask a queistion
 
 B 1t)omc tox Geniuses. 215 
 
 such as 'Can the honorable gentleman, 
 the Secretary of State for Home Affairs, 
 inform the Hoose whether it is a fac 
 that Mr. Sic-a-one, the well-known 
 genius at present resident in the Home 
 for Geniuses, has, contrairy to regula- 
 tions, perseestently and obstinately 
 refused to change his linen ; and, if 
 so, whether the Government proposes 
 to take ony steps in the matter ? ' The 
 newspapers would report the discus- 
 sion next mornin', an' so it would 
 be made public withoot onneccssary 
 ootlay." 
 
 *'In a general way, however, you 
 would give the geniuses perfect free- 
 dom ? They could work when they 
 liked, and come and go when they 
 liked ? " 
 
 ' ' Not so. The superintendent would 
 fix the hours o' wark, an' they would 
 all write, or whatever it was, thegither 
 in one large room. Man, man, it
 
 2i6 B 'MinDovv in ^brums, 
 
 would mak a grand draw for a painter- 
 chield, that room, wi' all the geniuses 
 working awa' thegither. " 
 
 "But when the labors of the day- 
 were over the genius would be a.f 
 liberty to make calls by himself, or, to 
 run up, say, to London for an hour or 
 two ? "' 
 
 " Hoots no, that would spoil every- 
 thing. It is the drink, ye see, as does 
 for a terrible lot o' geniuses. Even 
 Rob ■' 
 
 "Alas! yes. But would you have 
 them all teetotalers .? " 
 
 "What do ye tak me for ? Na, na ; 
 the superintendent would allow them 
 one glass o' toddy every nicht, an' mix 
 it himsel' ; but he would never let the 
 keys o' the press, whaur he kept the 
 drink, oot o' his hands. They would 
 never be allowed oot o' the gairden 
 either, withoot a man to look after 
 them : an' I wouldna burthen them
 
 B Ibomc tor Geniuses. 
 
 217 
 
 wi' ower muckle pocket money Sax- 
 pence in the week would be suffee- 
 cient." 
 
 " How about their clothes ? " 
 
 ''They would get twa suits a year, 
 wi' the letter G sewed on the shoulders, 
 so as if they were lost they could be 
 recognized and brocht back." 
 
 "Certainly it is a scheme deserving 
 consideration, and I have no doubt 
 our geniuses would jump at it ; but 
 you must remember that some of them 
 would have wives." 
 
 "Ay. an' some o' them would hae 
 husbands. I've been thinkin* that oot, 
 an' I daur say the best plan would be 
 to partition aff a pairt o' the Home for 
 female geniuses. " 
 
 " Would Parliament elect the mem- 
 bers ? " 
 
 "I wouldna trust them. The elec- 
 tion would hae to be by competitive 
 examination. Na, I canna say wha
 
 2i8 ^ liminDow in Zhx\xme. 
 
 would draw up the queistions. The 
 scheme's jui?t growin' i' my mind, 
 but the mair X think o"t the better I 
 Uke it."
 
 Xeebs anD 5amlc. 219 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 LEEBY AND JAMIE. 
 
 By the bank of the Quharity on a 
 summer day I have seen a barefooted 
 girl gaze at the running water until 
 tears filled her eyes. That was the 
 birth of romance. Whether this love 
 be but a beautiful dream I cannot say, 
 but this we see, that it comes to all, 
 and colors the whole future life with 
 gold. Leeby must have dreamed it, 
 but I did not know her then. I have 
 heard of a man who would have taken 
 her far away into a county where the 
 corn is yellow when it is still green 
 with us, but she would not leave her 
 mother, nor was it him she saw in her 
 dream. From her earliest days, when
 
 2 20 B "MinDow in ^brums. 
 
 she was still a child staggering round 
 the garden with Jamie in her arms, 
 her duty lay before her, straight as the 
 burying-ground road. Jess had need 
 of her in the little home at the top of 
 the brae, where God, looking down 
 upon her as she scrubbed and gos- 
 siped and sat up all night with her 
 ailing mother, and never missed the 
 prayer-meeting, and adored the minis- 
 ter, did not perhaps think her the least 
 of His handmaids. Her years w^ere 
 less than thirty when He took her 
 away, but she had few days that were 
 altogether dark. Those who bring 
 sunshine to the lives of others cannot 
 keep it from themselves. 
 
 The love Leeby bore for Jamie was 
 such that in their younger days it 
 shamed him. Other laddies knew of 
 it, and flung it at him until he dared 
 Leeby to let on in public that he and 
 she were related.
 
 Xeebg auD ^arnlc. 221 
 
 " Hoo is your lass?"' they used to 
 cry to him, inventing- a new game. 
 
 " I saw Leeby lookin' for ye," they 
 would say ; "she's wearyin' for ye to 
 gang an' play wi' her." 
 
 Then if they were not much bigger 
 boys than himself, Jamie got them 
 against the dyke and hit them hard 
 until they publicly owned to knowing 
 that she was his sister, and that he 
 was not fond of her. 
 
 "It distressed him mair than ye 
 could believe, though," Jess has told 
 me ; ' ' an' when he came hame he 
 would greet an' say 'at Leeby dis- 
 graced him. " 
 
 Leeby, of course, suffered for her 
 too obvious affection. 
 
 "I wonder 'at ye dinna try to con- 
 trol yersel',"' Jamie would say to her, 
 as he grew bigger. 
 
 "'Am sure," said Leeby, "I never 
 i^ne ye a look if there's onybody there."
 
 22 2 B "CBlinDovv in ^brums. 
 
 '•' A look ! You're aye lookin' at me 
 sae fond-like 'at I dinna ken what wy 
 to turn." 
 
 " Weel, I canna help it," said 
 Leeby, probably beginning to whim- 
 per. 
 
 If Jamie was in a very bad temper 
 he left her, after this, to her own re- 
 flections ; but he was naturally soft- 
 hearted. 
 
 "'Am no tellin' ye no to care for 
 me," he told her, "but juist to keep it 
 mair to yersel'. Naebody would ken 
 frae me 'at 'am fond o' ye.'" 
 
 " Mebbe yer no ? " said Leeby. 
 
 "Ay, am I, but I can keep it secret. 
 When we're in the hoose "am juist 
 richt fond o' ye." 
 
 " Do ye love me, Jamie .^" 
 
 Jamie waggled his head in irritation. 
 
 ' ' Love, " he said, ' ' is an awfu'-like 
 word to use when fowk's week Ye 
 shouldna spier sicannoyin' queistions."
 
 Xeeb^ auD 5amie. 223 
 
 " But if ye juist say ye love me I'll 
 never let on again afore fowk 'at yer 
 onything to me ava. " 
 
 *'Ay, ye often say that." 
 
 " Do ye no believe my word ? " 
 
 *'I believe fine ye mean what ye 
 say, but ye forget yersel' when the 
 time comes." 
 
 "Juist try me this time." 
 
 ''Weel, then, I do." 
 
 " Do what ? " asked the greedy 
 Leeby. 
 
 "What ye said." 
 
 " I said love." 
 
 " Weel," said Jamie, " I do't." 
 
 "What do ye do ? Say the word." 
 
 "Na," said Jamie, "I winna say 
 the word. It's no a word to say, but 
 I do't." 
 
 That was all she could get out oi 
 him, unless he was stricken with re- 
 morse, when he even went the length 
 of saying the word.
 
 2 24 21 "MinDow in G:brum5, 
 
 "Leeby kent perfectly weel," Jess 
 has said, " 'at it was a trial to Jamie 
 to tak her ony gait, an' I often used to 
 say to her 'at I wonder at her want o' 
 pride in priggin' wi' him. Ay, but if 
 she could juist get a promise wrung 
 oot o' him, she didna care hoo muckle 
 she had to prig. Syne they quarreled, 
 an' ane or baith o' them grat (cried) 
 afore they made it up. I mind when 
 Jamie went to the fishin' Leeby was 
 aye terrible keen to get wi' him, but 
 ye see he couldna be seen gaen through 
 the toon wi' her. ' If ye let me gang,' 
 she said to him, ' I'll no seek to go 
 through the toon wi' ye. Na, I'll gang 
 roond by the roods an' you can tak 
 the buryin'-ground road, so as we can 
 meet on the hill.' Yes. Leeby was 
 willin' to agree wi' a' that, juist to get 
 gaen wi' him. I've seen lassies mak- 
 kin' themsel's sma' for lads often 
 enough, but I never saw ane 'at prigged
 
 %ccb^ anD 5amie. 225 
 
 so muckle wi' her ain brother. Na, 
 it's other lassies' brothers they like as a 
 rule." 
 
 " But though Jamie was terrrible re- 
 served aboot it,'' said Leeby, " he was 
 as fond o' me as ever I was o' him. 
 Ye mind the time I had the measles, 
 mother ? " 
 
 " 'Am no likely to forget it, Leeby," 
 said Jess, " an' you blind wi' them for 
 three days. Ay, ay, Jamie was richt 
 ta'en up aboot ye. I mind he broke 
 open his pirly (money-box), an' bocht 
 a ha'penny worth o' something to ye 
 every day. " 
 
 *'An' ye hinna forgotten the stick.? " 
 
 '''Deed no, I hinna. Ye see," Jess 
 explained to me, ''Leeby was lyin* 
 ben the hoose, an' Jamie wasna 
 allowed to gang near her for fear o' in- 
 fection. Weel, he got a lang stick — it 
 was a pea-stick — an' put it aneath the 
 door an' waggled it. Ay, he did that 
 IS
 
 2 26 B "MlnDow in ^brums. 
 
 a curran times every day, juist to let 
 her see he was thinkin' o' her." 
 
 " Mair than that," said Leeby, "he 
 cried oot 'at he loved me." 
 
 "Ay, but juist aince," Jess said, "I 
 dinna mind o't butaince. It was the 
 time the doctor came late, an' Jamie, 
 being waukened by him, thocht ye 
 was deein'. I mind as if it w^as yes- 
 terday hoo he cam runnin' to the door 
 an' cried oot, ' I do love ye, Leeby ; I 
 love ye richt.' The doctor got a start 
 when he heard the voice, but he laughed 
 loud when he un'erstood." 
 
 ''He had nae business, though," 
 said Leeby, " to tell onybody." 
 
 ''He w^as a rale clever man, the 
 doctor," Jess explained to me, " ay, he 
 kent me as weel as though he'd gaen 
 through me wi* a lichted candle. It 
 got oot through him, an' the young 
 billies took to sayin' to Jamie, ' Ye do 
 love her, Jamie ; ay, ye love her richt'
 
 Xcebs anO 5amic. 227 
 
 The only reg'lar fecht I ever kent 
 Jamie hae was wi' a lad 'at cried that 
 to him. It was Bowlegs Chirsty's 
 laddie. Ay, but when she got better 
 Jamie blamed Leeby.'' 
 
 *'He no only blamed me," said 
 Leeby, ** but he wanted me to pay him 
 back a' the bawbees he had spent on 
 me." 
 
 '* Ay, an' I sepad he got them too," 
 said Jess. 
 
 In time Jamie became a barber in 
 Tilliedrum, trudging many heavy 
 miles there and back twice a day that 
 he might sleep at home, trudging 
 bravely I was to say, but it was what 
 he was born to, and there was hardly 
 an alternative. This was the time I 
 saw most of him, and he and Leeby 
 were often in my thoughts. There is 
 as terrible a bubble in the little kettle 
 as on the caldron of the world, and 
 some of the scenes between Jamie and
 
 2 28 B IKHinDow in ^brums. 
 
 Leeby were great tragedies, comedies, 
 what you will, until the kettle was 
 taken off the fire. Hers was the more 
 placid temper ; indeed, only in one 
 way could Jamie suddenly rouse her 
 to fury. That was when he hinted 
 that she had a large number of frocks. 
 Leeby knew that there could never be 
 more than a Sabbath frock and an 
 every-day gown for her, both of her 
 mother's making, but Jamie's insinua- 
 tions were more than she could bear. 
 Then I have seen her seize and shake 
 him. I know from Jess that Leeby 
 cried herself hoarse the day Joey was 
 buried, because her little black frock 
 was not ready for wear. 
 
 Until he went to Tilliedrum Jamie 
 had been more a stay-at-home boy 
 than most. The warmth of Jess' love 
 had something to do with keeping his 
 heart aglow, but more, I think, he 
 owed to Leeby. Tilliedrum was his
 
 %ccM anO 5anue. 229 
 
 introduction to the world, and for a 
 little it took his head. I was in the 
 house the Sabbath day that he refused 
 to go to church. 
 
 He went out in the forenoon to meet 
 the Tilliedrum lads, who were to take 
 him off for a holiday in a cart. Hen- 
 dry was more wrathful than I remem- 
 ber ever to have seen him, though I 
 have heard how he did with the lodger 
 who broke the Lords Day. This 
 lodger was a tourist who thought, in 
 folly surely rather than in hardness of 
 heart, to test the religious convictions 
 of an Auld Licht by insisting on pay- 
 ing his bill on a Sabbath morning. He 
 offered the money to Jess, with the 
 warning that if she did not take it now 
 she might never see it. Jess was so 
 kind and good to her lodgers that he 
 could not have known her long who 
 troubled her with this poor trick. She 
 was sorely in need at the time, and
 
 230 B MinDovv in ^brums. 
 
 entreated the thoughtless man to have 
 some pity on her. 
 
 "Now or never," he said, holding 
 out the money. 
 
 ' ' Put it on the dresser, " said Jess at 
 last, " an' I'll get it the morn." 
 
 The few shillin^^fs were laid on 
 the dresser, where they remained 
 unfingered until Hendry, with Leeby 
 and Jamie, came in from church. 
 
 ' ' What siller's that .? " asked Hendry, 
 and then Jess confessed what she had 
 done. 
 
 "I wonder at ye, woman," said Hen- 
 dry sternly ; and lifting the money he 
 climbed up to the attic with it. 
 
 He pushed open the door, and con- 
 fronted the lodger. 
 
 "Take back yer siller," he said, lay- 
 ing it on the table, "an' leave my 
 hoose. Man, you're a pitiable crittur 
 to take the chance, when I was oot, o' 
 playin' upon the poverty o' an onweel 
 -woman."
 
 %cc\)^ anD 5amic. 231 
 
 It was with such unwonted severity 
 2kv this that Hendry called upon Jamie 
 to. follow him to church ; but the boy 
 went off, and did not return till dusk, 
 defiant and miserable. Jess had been 
 so terrified that she forgave him every- 
 thing for sight of his face, and Hendry 
 prayed for him at family worship with 
 too much unction. But Leeby cried 
 as if her tender heart would break. 
 For a long time Jamie refused to look 
 at her, but at last he broke down. 
 
 ' ' If ye go on like that, '' he said, ' ' Fll 
 gang awa oot an' droon mysel', or be 
 a sojer. " 
 
 This was no uncommon threat of his, 
 and sometimes, when he went off, 
 banging the door violently, she ran 
 after him and brought him back. This 
 time she only wept the more, and so 
 both went to bed in misery. It was 
 after midnight that Jamie rose and 
 crept to Leeby 's bedside. Leeby was
 
 23; 
 
 B mini^ow in ^brums. 
 
 shaking the bed m her agony. Jess 
 heard what they said. 
 
 ' ' Leeby, " said Jamie, ' ' dinna greet, 
 an' I'll never do't again." 
 
 He put his arms round her, and she 
 kissed him passionately. 
 
 ' ' O Jamie, " she said, " hae ye prayed 
 to God to forgie ye ? " 
 
 Jamie did not speak. 
 
 " If ye was to die this nicht," cried 
 Leeby, " an' you no made it up wi' 
 God, ye wouldna gang to heaven. 
 Jamie, I canna sleep till ye've made it 
 up wi' God." 
 
 But Jamie sttll hung back. Leeby 
 slipped from her bed, and went down 
 on her knees. 
 
 ''O God, O dear God," she cried, 
 " mak Jamie to pray to you ! " 
 
 Then Jamie went down on his knees 
 too, and they made it up with God to- 
 gether. 
 
 This is a little thing for me to remem-
 
 Xeebis ?»"^ 5amie. 233 
 
 ber all these years, and yet how fresh 
 and sweet it keeps Lecby in my mem- 
 ory. 
 
 Away up in the glen, my lonely 
 school-house lying deep, as one might 
 say, in a sea of snow, I had many 
 hours in the years long by for thinking 
 of my friends in Thrums and mapping 
 out the future of Leeby and Jamie. I 
 saw Hendry and Jess taken to the 
 churchyard, and Leeby left alone in 
 the house. I saw Jamie fulfill his 
 promise to his mother, and take Leeby, 
 that stainless young woman, far away 
 to London, where they had a home 
 together. Ah, but these were only the 
 idle dreams of a dominie. The Lord 
 willed it otherwise.
 
 234 ^ 11ClinC)ow in G;brum6. 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 A TALE OF A GLOVE. 
 
 §0 long as Jamie was not the lad, 
 Jess twinkled gleefully over tales of 
 sweethearting. There was little 
 Kitty Lamby who used to skip in of 
 an evening, and, squatting on a stool 
 near the window, unwind the roll of 
 her enormities. A wheedling thing 
 she was, with an ambition to drive 
 men crazy, but my presence killed the 
 gossip on her tongue, though I liked 
 to look at her. When I entered, the 
 wag-at-the-wa' clock had again pos- 
 session of the kitchen. I never heard 
 more than the end of a sentence : 
 
 "An' did he really say he would 
 fling himsel' into the dam, Kitty } "
 
 B ^alc of a (5love. 235 
 
 Or — "True as death, Jess, he kissed 
 me." 
 
 Then I wandered away from the 
 kitchen, where I was not wanted, and 
 marveled to know that Jess of the 
 tender heart laughed most merrily 
 when he really did say that he was 
 going straight to the dam. As no 
 body was found in the dam in those 
 days, whoever he was he must have 
 thouo^ht better of it. 
 
 But let Kitty, or any other maid, 
 cast a glinting eye on Jamie, then 
 Jess no longer smiled. If he returned 
 the glance she sat silent in her chair 
 till Leeby laughed away her fears. 
 
 "Jamie's no the kind, mother, '' 
 Leeby would say. "Na, he's quiet, 
 but he sees through them. They 
 dinna draw his leg " (get over him). 
 
 "Ye never can tell, Leeby. The 
 laddies 'at's maist ill to get sometimes 
 gangs up in a flame a' at aince, like a 
 bit o' paper."
 
 236 U MinDow in Q:brum6. 
 
 "Ay, weel, at ony rate Jamie's no 
 on fire yet. " 
 
 Though clever beyond her neigh- 
 bors, Jess lost all her sharpness if they 
 spoke of a lassie for Jamie. 
 
 "I warrant," Tibbie Birse said one 
 day in my hearing, ' ' 'at there's some 
 leddy in London he's thinkin' o'. Ay, 
 he's been a guid laddie to ye, but i' 
 the coorse o' nature he'll be settlin' 
 dune soon." 
 
 Jess did not answer, but she was a 
 picture of woe. 
 
 •" Ye're lettin' what Tibbie Birse 
 said lie on yer mind, " Leeby remarked, 
 when Tibbie was gone. "What can 
 it maiter what she thinks ? " 
 
 "I canna help it, Leeby," said Jess. 
 "Na, an' I canna bear to think o' 
 Jamie bein' mairit. It would lay me 
 low to loss my laddie. No yet, no 
 yet. " 
 
 "But, mother," said Leeby, quot-
 
 B Z^lc Of a (3love» 237 
 
 ing from the minister at weddings, 
 ''ye wouldna be lossin' a son, but 
 juist gainin' a dochter." 
 
 "Dinna haver, Leeby," answered 
 Jess, " I want nane o' thae dochters ; 
 na, na. ' 
 
 This talk took place while we were 
 still awaiting Jamie's coming. He 
 had only been with us one day when 
 Jess made a terrible discovery. She 
 was looking so mournful when I saw 
 her, that I asked Leeby what was 
 wrong. 
 
 "She's brocht it on hersel','*' said 
 Leeby. "Ye see, she was up sune i' 
 the mornin' to begin to the darnin' o' 
 Jamie's stockin's an' to warm his sark 
 at the fire afore he put it on. He 
 woke up, an' cried to her 'at he wasna 
 accustomed to hae'n his things warmed 
 for him. Ay, he cried it oot fell 
 thrawn, so she took it into her head 
 'at there was something in his pouch
 
 238 B MinDow in Q:brum5. 
 
 he didna want her to see. She was 
 even onaisy last nicht. " 
 
 I asked what had aroused Jess' sus- 
 picions last night, 
 
 "Ou, ye would notice 'at she sat 
 devourin' him wi' her een, she was so 
 lifted up at hae'n 'im again. Weel, 
 she says noo 'at she saw 'im twa or 
 three times put his hand in his pouch 
 as if he was fin din' to mak sure 'at 
 something- was safe. wSo when he fell 
 asleep again this mornin' she got haud 
 o' his jacket to see if there was ony- 
 thing in't. I advised her no to do't, 
 but she couldna help hersel'. She put 
 in her hand, an' pu'd it oot. That's 
 what's makkin' her look sae ill. " 
 
 " But what was it she found ? " 
 
 ' ' Did I no tell ye ? I'm ga'en 
 dottle, I think. It was a glove, a 
 woman's glove, in a bit paper. Ay, 
 though she's sittin' still she's near 
 frantic."
 
 a ^ale of a (5love. 239 
 
 I said I supposed Jess had put the 
 glove back in Jamie's pocket. 
 
 ''Na," said Leeby, "'deed no. She 
 wanted to fling it on the back o' the 
 fire, but I wouldna let her. That's it 
 she has aneath her apron." 
 
 Later in the day I remarked to Leeby 
 that Jamie was very dull. 
 
 " He's missed it," she explained. 
 
 "Has any one mentioned it to 
 him ? " I asked, ' ' or has he inquired 
 about it ? '' 
 
 "Na," said Leeby, "there hasna 
 been a syllup (syllable) aboot it. My 
 mother's fleid to mention't, an' he 
 doesna like to speak aboot it either. " 
 
 "Perhaps he thinks he has lost it.? " 
 
 "Nae fear o' him," Leeby said. 
 " Na, he kens fine wha has't." 
 
 I never knew how Jamie came by 
 the glove, nor whether it had origi- 
 nally belonged to her who made him 
 forget the window at the top of the brae.
 
 24 o B "MinDow in ^brums. 
 
 At the time I looked on as at play- 
 acting, rejoicing in the happy ending. 
 Alas ! in the real life how are we to 
 know when we have reached an end ? 
 
 But this glove, I say, may not have 
 been that woman's, and if it was, she 
 had not then bedeviled him. He was 
 too sheepish to demand it back from 
 his mother, and already he cared for it 
 too much to laugh at Jess' theft with 
 Leeby. So it was that a curious game 
 at chess was played with the glove, 
 the players a silent pair. 
 
 Jamie cared little to read books, but 
 on the day following Jess' discovery, 
 I found him on his knees in the attic, 
 looking through mine. A little box, 
 without a lid, held them all, but they 
 seemed a great library to him. 
 
 "There's readin' for a lifetime in 
 them," he said. "I was juist takkin' 
 a look through them." 
 
 His face was guilty, however, as if
 
 a Xlale of a (3love» 241 
 
 his hand had been caught in a money- 
 bag, and I wondered what had enticed 
 the lad to my books. I was still stand- 
 ing pondering when Leeby ran up the 
 stair ; she was so active that she 
 generally ran, and she grudged the 
 time lost in recovering her breath. 
 
 " I'll put yer books richt, " she said, 
 making her word good as she spoke. 
 " I kent Jamie had been ransackin' up 
 here, though he came up rale canny. 
 Ay, ye would notice he was in his 
 stockin' soles." 
 
 I had not noticed this, but I remem- 
 bered now his slipping from the room 
 very softly. If he wanted a book, I 
 told Leeby, he could have got it with- 
 out any display of cunning. 
 
 "It's no a book he's looking for," 
 she said, "na, it's his glove." 
 
 The time of day was early for Leeby 
 to gossip, but I detained her for a 
 moment. 
 16
 
 242 B MinDow in ^brunts. 
 
 ' ' My mother's hodded (hid) it, " she 
 explained, "an' he winna speir nae 
 queistions. But he's lookin' for't. He 
 was ben in the room searchin' the 
 drawers when I was up i' the toon in 
 the forenoon. Ye see, he pretends no 
 to be carin' afore me, an' though my 
 mother's sittin' sae quiet-like at the 
 window she's hearkenin' a' the time. 
 Ay, an' he thocht I had hod it up 
 here." 
 
 But where, I asked, was the glove hid. 
 
 *'I ken nae mair than yersel'," said 
 Leeby. " My mother's gien to hod- 
 din' things. She has a place aneath 
 the bed whaur she keeps the siller, an' 
 she's no speakin' aboot the glove to me 
 noo, because she thinks Jamie an' 
 me's in comp (company). I speired 
 at her whaur she had hod it, but she 
 juist said, ' What would I be doin' 
 hoddin't } ' She'll never admit to me 
 'at she hods .the siller either. "
 
 21 ^ale of a (3lovc. 243 
 
 Next day Leeby came to me with 
 the latest news. 
 
 "He's foundit," shesaid, "ay, he's 
 got the giove again. Ye see, what 
 put him on the wrang scent was a 
 notion 'at I had put it some gait. He 
 kent 'at if she'd hod it, the kitchen 
 maun be the place, but he thocht she'd 
 gien it to me to hod. He cameupon't 
 by accident. It was aneath the paddin' 
 o' her chair. " 
 
 Here, I thought, was the end of the 
 glove incident, but I was mistaken. 
 There were no presses or drawers 
 with locks in the house, and Jess got 
 hold of the glove again. I suppose 
 she had reasoned out no line of action. 
 She merely hated the thought that 
 Jamie should have a woman's glove in 
 his possession. 
 
 "She beats a' wi' 'cuteness, '' Leeby 
 said to me. "Jamie didna put the 
 glove back in his pouch. Na, he kens
 
 244 21 WfitDow in ^brums, 
 
 her ower weel by this time. She was 
 up, though, lang afore he was wauken, 
 an' she gaed almost strecht to the 
 place whaur he had hod it. I believe 
 she lay waukin a' nicht thinkin' oot 
 whaur it would be. Ay, it was aneath 
 the mattress. I saw her hodden't i' the 
 back o'the drawer, but I didna let on." 
 
 I quite believed Leeby when she 
 told me afterward that she had watched 
 Jamie feeling beneath the mattress. 
 
 ''He had a face, " she said, "I as- 
 sure ye, he had a face, when he dis- 
 covered the glove was gone again." 
 
 "He maun be terrible ta'en up 
 aboot it," Jess said to Leeby, "or he 
 wouldna keep it aneath the mattress." 
 
 "Od," said Leeby, " it was yersel' 
 'at drove him to't. " 
 
 Again Jamie recovered his property, 
 and again Jess got hold of it. This 
 time he looked in vain. I learned the 
 fate of the glove from Leeby.
 
 B ^alc of a (3love. 245 
 
 ''Ye mind 'at she keepit him hame 
 frae the kirk on Sabbath, because he 
 had a cauld ? " Leeby said. "Ay, 
 me or my father would hae a gey ill 
 cauld afore she would let's bide at 
 hame frae the kirk ; but Jamie's differ- 
 ent. VVeel, mair than aince she's been 
 near speakin' to 'im aboot the glove, 
 but she grew fleid aye. She was sae 
 terrified there was something in't. 
 
 "On Sabbath, though, she had him 
 to hersel', an' he wasna so bright as 
 usual. She sat wi' the Bible on her 
 lap, pretendin' to read, but a' the time 
 she was takkin' keeks (glances) at him. 
 I dinna ken 'at he was broodin' ower 
 the glove, but she thocht he was, an' 
 juist afore the kirk came oot she 
 couldna stand it nae langer. She put 
 her hand in her pouch, an' pu'd oot the 
 glove, wi' the paper round it, juist as 
 it had been when she cam?! upon't. 
 
 "'That's yours, Jamie/ she said;
 
 246 B TiminOow in ^brums. 
 
 'it was ill-dune o' me to tak it, but I 
 couldna help it.' 
 
 ** Jamie put oot his hand, an' syne 
 he drew it back. ' It's no a thing o' 
 nae consequence, mother,' he said. 
 
 •' 'Wha is she, Jamie.?' my mother 
 said. 
 
 "He turned awa his heid — so she 
 telt me. 'It's a lassie in London,' he 
 said, 'I dinna ken her muckle. ' 
 
 " 'Ye maun ken her weel,' my 
 mother persisted, 'to be carryin' aboot 
 her glove ; I'm dootin' yer gey fond o' 
 her, Jamie } ' 
 
 " ' Na, ' said Jamie, ' 'am no. There's 
 no naebody I care for like yersel', 
 mother. ' 
 
 " ' Ye wouldna carry aboot onything 
 o' mine, Jamie,' my mother said ; but 
 he says, 'Oh, mother, I carry aboot 
 yer face wi' me aye ; an' sometimes at 
 nicht I kind o' greet to think o' ye.' 
 
 "Ay, after that I've nae doot he was
 
 B ^ale of a ©love. 247 
 
 sittin' wi' his arms aboot her. She 
 didna tell me that, but weel he kens 
 it's what she likes, an' she maks nae 
 pretense o' it's no bein'. But for a' he 
 said an' did, she noticed him put the 
 glove back in his inside pouch. 
 
 " 'It's wrang o' me, Jamie,' she said, 
 'but I canna bear to think o' ye carryin* 
 that aboot sae carefu'. No, I canna 
 help it' 
 
 *'Weel, Jamie, the crittur, took it 
 oot o' his pouch, an' kind o' hesitated. 
 Syne he lays 't on the back o' the fire, 
 an' they sat thegither glowerin' at it. 
 
 '''Noo, mother,' he says, 'you're 
 satisfied, are ye no ? ' 
 
 ''Ay," Leeby ended her story, "she 
 said she was satisfied. But she saw 
 'at he laid it on the fire fell fond-like."
 
 248 B TKIltnDow in ^brums. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE LAST NIGHT. 
 
 *'JuiST another sax nichts, Jamie," 
 Jess would say, sadly. " Juist fower 
 nichts noo, an' you'll be awa. " Even 
 as she spoke seemed to come the last 
 night. 
 
 The last night ! Reserve slipped 
 unheeded to the floor. Hendry wan- 
 dered ben and but the house, and 
 Jamie sat at the window holding his 
 mother's hand. You must walk softly 
 now if you would cross that humble 
 threshold. I stop at the door. Then, 
 as now, I was a lonely man, and when 
 the last night came the attic was the 
 place for me.
 
 Zbc ILast WQbU 249 
 
 This family affection, how good and 
 beautiful it is ! Men and maids love, 
 and after many years they may rise to 
 this. It is the grand proof of the good- 
 ness in human nature, for it means 
 that the more we see of each other the 
 more we find that is lovable. If you 
 would cease to dislike a man, try to 
 get nearer his heart. 
 
 Leeby had no longer any excuse for 
 bustling about. Everything was ready 
 — too soon. Hendry had been to the 
 fish-cadger in the square to get a bervie 
 for Jamie's supper, and Jamie had 
 eaten it, trying to look as if it made 
 him happier. His little box was 
 packed and strapped, and stood terri- 
 bly conspicuous against the dresser. 
 Jess had packed it herself 
 
 *' Ye mauna trachle (trouble) yersel', 
 mother," Jamie said, when she had the 
 empty box pulled toward her. 
 
 Leeby was ^iser.
 
 250 B IKHinDow In ^brunts. 
 
 " Let her do't," she whispered, " itll 
 keep her frae broodin'." 
 
 Jess tied ends of yarn round the 
 stockings to keep them in a little 
 bundle by themselves. So she did 
 with all the other articles. 
 
 "No 'at it's ony great affair," she 
 said, for on the last night they were 
 all thirsting to do something for Jamie 
 that would be a great affair to him. 
 
 "Ah, ye would wonder, mother,'' 
 Jamie said, "when I open my box 
 an' find a'thing tied up wi" strings sae 
 careful, it a' comes back to me wi' a 
 rush wha did it, an' 'am as fond o'thae 
 strings as though they were a grand 
 present. There's the pocky (bag) ye 
 gae me to keep sewin' things in. I get 
 the wifie I lodge wi' to sew to me, but 
 often when I come upon the pocky I 
 sit an' look at it." 
 
 Two chairs were backed to the fire, 
 with underclothing hanging upside
 
 Zbc Xast IRigbt. 251 
 
 down on them. From the string over 
 the fireplace dangled two pairs of 
 much-darned stockings. 
 
 ' ' Ye'll put on baith thae pair o' stock- 
 in's, Jamie," said Jess, " juist to please 
 me ? " 
 
 When he arrived he had rebelled 
 against the extra clothing. 
 
 " Ay, will I, mother.? " he said now. 
 
 Jess put her hand fondly through 
 his ugly hair. How handsome she 
 thought him ! 
 
 "Ye have a fine brow, Jamie," ^e 
 said. "I mind the day ye was born 
 sayin' to mysel' at ye had a fine 
 brow. "' 
 
 " But ye thocht he was to be a lassie, 
 mother," said Leeby. 
 
 "Na, Leeby, I didna. I kept saym' 
 I thocht he would be a lassie because 
 I was fleid he would be ; but a' the 
 time I had a presentiment he would be 
 a laddie. It was wi' Joey deein' sae
 
 252 B TlClinOow in ^brums» 
 
 sudden, an' I took on sae terrible aboot 
 'im 'at I thocht all alang- the Lord 
 would gie me another laddie." 
 
 "Ay, I wanted 'im to be a laddie 
 myser,"said Hendry, "so as he could 
 tak Joey's place." 
 
 Jess' head jerked back involuntar- 
 ily, and Jamie may have felt her hand 
 shake, for he said in a voice out of 
 Hendry's hearing : 
 
 "I never took Joey's place wi' ye, 
 mother. " 
 
 'Jess pressed his hand tightly in her 
 two worn palms, but she did not speak. 
 
 "Jamie was richt like Joey when he 
 was a bairn," Hendry said. 
 
 Again Jess' head moved, but still she 
 was silent. 
 
 "They were sae like," continued 
 Hendry, "'at often I called Jamie by 
 Joey's name." 
 
 Jess looked at her husband, and her 
 mouth opened and shut.
 
 XLbc Xast mm* 253 
 
 ''I canna mind 'at you ever did 
 that ? " Hendry said. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "Na," said Hendry, "you never 
 mixed them up. I dinna think ye ever 
 missed Joey sae sair as I did." 
 
 Leeby went ben, and stood in the 
 room in the dark ; Jamie knew why. 
 
 "I'll just gang ben an' speak to 
 Leeby for a meenute," he said to his 
 mother ; '' I'll no be lang." 
 
 "Ay, do that, Jamie," said Jess. 
 "What Leeby's been to me nae tongue 
 can tell. Ye canna bear to hear me 
 speak, I ken, o' the time when Hen- 
 dry an' me'U be awa, but, Jamie, 
 when that time comes ye'll no forget 
 Leeby ? " 
 
 "I winna, mother, I winna," said 
 Jamie. "There'll never be a roof 
 ower me 'at's no hers too." 
 
 He went ben and shut the door. I 
 do not know what he and Leeby said.
 
 254 ^ MinDow in Q:brums. 
 
 Many a time since their earliest youth 
 had these two been closeted together, 
 often to make up their little quarrels 
 in each other's arms. They remained 
 a long- time in the room, the shabby 
 room of which Jess and Leeby were 
 so proud, and whatever might be their 
 fears about their mother they were not 
 anxious for themselves. Leeby was 
 feeling lusty and well, and she could 
 not know that Jamie required to be 
 reminded of his duty to the folk at 
 home. Jamie would have laughed at 
 the notion. Yet that woman in Lon- 
 don must have been waiting for him 
 even then. Leeby, who was about to 
 die, and Jamie, who was to forget his 
 mother, came back to the kitchen with 
 a happy light on their faces. I have 
 with me still the look of love they gave 
 each other before Jamie crossed over 
 to Jess. 
 
 " Ye'll gang anower, noo, mother,''
 
 ZTbe OLast fUMgbt 255 
 
 Leeby said, meaning that it was Jess' 
 bed-time. 
 
 ''No yet, Leeby," Jess answered; 
 *' I'll sit up till the readin's ower. " 
 
 "I think ye should gang, mother," 
 Jamie said, " an' I'll come an' sit aside 
 ye after ye're i' yer bed. " 
 
 "Ay, Jamie, I'll no hae ye to sit 
 aside me the morn's nicht, an' hap 
 (cover) me wi' the claes." 
 
 ''But ye'll gang suner to yer bed, 
 mother. " 
 
 "I may gang, but I winna sleep. 
 I'll aye be thinkin' o' ye tossin' on the 
 sea. I pray for ye a lang time ilka 
 nicht, Jamie." 
 
 "Ay, I ken." 
 
 * ' An' I pictur' ye ilka hour o' the day. 
 Ye never gang hame through thae 
 terrible streets at nicht but I'm thinkin' 
 o' ye." 
 
 "I would try no to be sae sad, 
 mother," said Leeby. "We've ha'en 
 a richt fine time, have we no ? "
 
 256 H 1iminC>ow in ^brums* 
 
 "It's been an awfu' happy time," 
 said Jess. "We've ha'en a pleasant- 
 ness in oor lives 'at comes to few. I 
 ken naebody at's ha'en sae muckle 
 happiness one wy or another." 
 
 "It's because ye're sae guid, 
 mother," said Jamie. 
 
 " Na, Jamie, 'am no guid ava. It's 
 because my fowk's been sae guid, you 
 an' Hendry an' Leeby an' Joey when 
 he was livin'. I've got a lot mairthan 
 my deserts." 
 
 "We'll juist look to meetin' next 
 year again, mother. To think o' that 
 keeps me up a' the winter." 
 
 "Ay, if it's the Lord's will, Jamie, 
 but 'am gey dune noo, an' Hendry's 
 fell worn too." 
 
 Jamie, the boy that he was, said, 
 "Dinna speak like that, mother," and 
 Jess again put her hand on his head. 
 
 " Fine I ken, Jamie," she said, " 'at 
 all my days on this earth, be they short
 
 ^be Uast IRlgbt. 257 
 
 or lang, I've you for a staff to lean 
 on." 
 
 Ah, many years have gone since 
 then, but if Jamie be living now he 
 has still those words to swallow. 
 
 By and by Leeby went ben for the 
 Bible, and put it into Hendry's hands. 
 He slowly turned over the leaves to 
 his favorite chapter, the fourteenth of 
 John's Gospel. Always, on eventful 
 occasions, did Hendry turn to the 
 fourteenth of John. 
 
 "Let not your heart be troubled; 
 ye believe in God, believe also in Me. 
 
 "In My Father's house are many 
 mansions ; if it were not so I would 
 have told you. I go to prepare a place 
 for you. " 
 
 As Hendry raised his voice to read 
 there was a great stillness in the kitch- 
 en. I do not know that I have been 
 able to show in the most imperfect 
 Way what kind of man Hendry was. 
 17
 
 258 B IdinDow fn ^brums. 
 
 He was dense in many things, and 
 the cleverness that was Jess' had been 
 denied to him. He had less book- 
 learning than most of those with whom 
 he passed his days, and he had little 
 skill in talk. I have not known a man 
 more easily taken in by persons whose 
 speech had two faces. But a more 
 simple, modest, upright man there 
 never was in Thrums, and I shall 
 always revere his memory. 
 
 "And if I go and prepare a place 
 for you, I will come again, and re- 
 ceive you unto IMyself ; that where I 
 am, there ye may be also." 
 
 The voice may have been monoto- 
 nous. I have alwavs thouo:ht that 
 Hendry's reading of the Bible was the 
 most solemn and impressive I have 
 ever heard. He exulted in the four- 
 teenth of John, pouring it forth like 
 one whom it intoxicated while he 
 read. He emphasized every other
 
 ^bc Xast Tliabt. 259 
 
 word ; it was so real and grand to 
 him. 
 
 We went upon our knees while 
 Hendry prayed, all but Jess, who 
 could not Jamie buried his face in 
 her lap. The words Hendry said were 
 those he used every night. Some, 
 perhaps, would have smiled at his 
 prayer to God that we be not puffed 
 up with riches nor with the things of 
 this world. His head shook with 
 emotion while he prayed, and he 
 brought us very near to the Throne of 
 Grace. ''Do Thou, O our God," he 
 said, in conclusion, " spread Thy 
 guiding hand over him whom in Thy 
 great mercy Thou hast brought to us 
 again, and do Thou guard him through 
 the perils which come unto those that 
 go down to the sea in ships. Let not 
 our hearts be troubled, neither let 
 them be afraid, for this is notour abid- 
 ing home, and may we all meet in
 
 26o B WinDow in ^brums. 
 
 Thy house, where there are many 
 mansions, and where there will be no 
 last night. Amen." 
 
 It was a silent kitchen after that, 
 though the lamp burned long in Jess' 
 window. By its meager light you 
 may take a final glance at the little 
 family ; you will never see them to- 
 gether again.
 
 5ess Xcft Blone. 261 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 JESS LEFT ALONE. 
 
 There may be a few who care to 
 know how the lives of Jess and Hen- 
 dry ended. Leeby died in the back- 
 end of the year I have been speaking 
 of, and as I was snowed up in the 
 school-house at the time, I heard the 
 news from Gavin Birse too late, to 
 attend her funeral. She got her death 
 on the commonty one day of sudden 
 rain, when she had run out to bring in 
 her washing, for the terrible cold she 
 woke with next morning carried her 
 off very quickly. Leeby did not blame 
 Jamie for not coming to her, nor did I, 
 for I knew that even in the presence 
 of death the poor must drag their
 
 262 B WinDow in c:brums. 
 
 chains. He never got Hendry's letter 
 with the news, and we know now 
 that he was already in the hands of 
 her who played the devil with his life. 
 Before the spring came he had been 
 lost to Jess. 
 
 ''Them 'at has got sae mony bless- 
 in's mair than the generality," Hendry 
 said to me one day, when Craigie- 
 buckle had given me a lift into Thrums, 
 "has nae shame if they would pray 
 aye for mair. The Lord has gi'en this 
 hoose sae muckle, 'at to pray for mair 
 looks like no bein' thankfu' for what 
 we've got. Ay, but I canna help 
 prayin' to Him 'at in His great mercy 
 He'll tak Jess afore me. Noo 'at 
 Leeby's gone, an' Jamie never lets us 
 hear frae him, I canna gulp doon the 
 thocht o' Jess bein' left alane. " 
 
 This was a prayer that Hendry may 
 be pardoned for having so often in his 
 heart, though God did not think fit to
 
 5ess Xett Blone. 263 
 
 grant it. In Thrums, when a weaver 
 died, his womenfolk had to take his 
 seat at the loom, and those who, by 
 reason of infirmities, could not do so, 
 went to a place, the name of which, 
 I thank God, I am not compelled to 
 write in this chapter. I could not, 
 even at this day, have told any epi- 
 sodes in the life of Jess had it ended 
 in the poor-house. 
 
 Hendry would probably have re- 
 covered from the fever had not this 
 terrible dread darkened his intellect 
 when he was still prostrate. He was 
 lying- in the kitchen when I saw him 
 last in life, and his parting words must 
 be sadder to the reader than they were 
 to me. 
 
 "Ah, richt ye are," he said, in a 
 voice that had become a child s ; "I 
 hae muckle, muckle, to be thankfu'for, 
 an' not the least in at baith me an' 
 Jess has aye belonged to a bural society.
 
 264 ^ llClinDow in C:brum6. 
 
 We hae nae cause to be anxious aboot 
 a' thing bein' dune respectable aince 
 we're gone. It was Jess 'at insisted 
 on oor joinin' : a' the wisest things I 
 ever did I was put up to by her." 
 
 I parted from Hendry, cheered by 
 the doctor's report, but the old weaver 
 died a few days afterward. His end 
 was mournful, yet I can recall it now 
 as the not unworthy close of a good 
 man's life. One night poor worn Jess 
 had been helped ben into the room, 
 Tibbie Birse having undertaken to sit 
 up with Hendry. Jess slept for the first 
 time for many days, and as the night 
 was dying Tibbie fell asleep too. Hen- 
 dry had been better than usual, lying 
 quietly, Tibbie said, and the fever was 
 gone. About three o'clock Tibbie 
 woke and rose to mend the fire. Then 
 she saw that Hendry was not in his ^ed. 
 
 Tibbie went ben the house ir ^*^r 
 stocking-soles, but Jess heard her
 
 5e60 Xeft Blone. 265 
 
 " What is't, Tibbie ? " she asked anx- 
 iously. 
 
 "Ou, it's no naething," Tibbie said, 
 *' he's lyin' rale quiet." 
 
 Then she went up to the attic. Hen- 
 dry was not in the house. 
 
 She opened the door gently and stole 
 out. It was not snowing, but there 
 had been a heavy fall two days before, 
 and the night was windy. A tearing 
 gale had blown the upper part of the 
 brae clear, and from T'nowhead's fields 
 the snow was rising like smoke. Tib- 
 bie ran to the farm and woke up 
 T'nowhead. 
 
 For an hour they looked in vain for 
 Hendry. At last some one asked who 
 was working in Elshioner's shop all 
 night. This was the long earthen- 
 floored room in which Hendry's loom 
 stood w^ith three others. 
 
 " It'll be Sanders Whamond likely," 
 T'nowhead said, and the other men 
 nodded.
 
 266 B "Minnow in ^brume. 
 
 But it happened that T'nowhead's 
 Bell, who hacl flung on a wrapper, and 
 hastened across to sit with Jess, heard 
 of the light in Elshioner's shop. 
 
 "It's Hendry,'' she cried, and then 
 every one moved toward the workshop. 
 
 The light at the diminutive, yarn- 
 covered window was pale and dim ; but 
 Bell, who was at the house first, could 
 make the most of a cruizey s glimmer. 
 
 " It's him," she said, and then, with 
 swelling throat, she ran back to Jess. 
 
 The door of the workshop was wide 
 open, held against the wall by the wind. 
 T'nowhead and the others went in. 
 The cruizey stood on the little window. 
 Hendry's back was to the door, and 
 he was leaning forward on the silent 
 loom. He had been dead for some 
 time, but his fellow-workers saw that he 
 must have w.eaved for nearly an hour. 
 
 So it came about that for the last 
 few months of her pilgrimage Jess was
 
 Jess Xeft aionc. 267 
 
 left alone. Yet I may not say that 
 she was alone. Jamie, who should 
 have been with her, was undergoing" 
 his own ordeal far away ; where, we 
 did not now even know. But though 
 the poor-house stands in Thrums, where 
 all may see it, the neighbors did not 
 think only of themselves. 
 
 Than Tammas Haggart there can 
 scarcely have been a poorer man, but 
 Tammas was the first to come forward 
 with offer of help. To the day of Jess' 
 death he did not once fail to carry her 
 water to her in the morning, and the 
 luxuriously-living men of Thrums, in 
 these present days of pumps at every 
 corner, can hardly realize what that 
 meant. Often there were lines of 
 people at the well by three o'clock in 
 the morning, and each had to wait his 
 turn. Tammas filled his o\yn pitcher 
 and pan, and then had to take his place 
 at the end of the line with Jess' pitcher
 
 268 H MinDow in ^brume. 
 
 and pan, to wait his turn again. His 
 own house was in the Tenements, far 
 from the brae in winter time, but he 
 always said to Jess it was " naething 
 ava. " 
 
 Every Saturday old Robbie Angus 
 sent a bag of sticks and shavings from 
 the saw-mill by his little son Rob, who 
 was afterward to become a man for 
 speaking about at nights. Of all the 
 friends that Jess and Hendry had, 
 T'nowhead was the ablest to help, 
 and the sweetest memory I have of 
 the farmer and his wife is the delicate 
 way they offered it. You who read 
 will see Jess wince at the offer of 
 charity. But the poor have fine feel- 
 ings beneath the grime, as you will 
 discover if you care to look for them ; 
 and when Jess said she would bake 
 if any one would buy, you would won- 
 der to hear how many kindly folk came 
 to her door for scones.
 
 5e06 %ctt Blone. 269 
 
 She had the house to herself at 
 nights, but Tibbie Birse was with her 
 early in the morning, and other neigh- 
 bors dropped in. Not for long did she 
 have to wait the summons to the 
 better home. 
 
 " Na," she said to the minister, who 
 has told me that he was a better man 
 from knowing her, "my thochts is no 
 nane set on the vanities o' the world 
 noo. I kenna hoo I could ever hae 
 haen sic an ambeetion to hae thae 
 stuff-bottomed chairs. " 
 
 I have tried to keep away from Jamie, 
 whom the neighbors sometimes up- 
 braided in her presence. It is of him 
 you who read would like to hear, and 
 I cannot pretend that Jess did not sit 
 at her window looking for him. 
 
 "Even when she was bakin','' Tib- 
 bie told me, "she aye had an eye on 
 the brae. If Jamie had come at ony 
 time when it was licht she would hae
 
 270 "B Window In ^brums. 
 
 seen 'im as sune as he turned the 
 corner. " 
 
 "If he ever comes back, the sacket 
 ^(rascal)," T'nowhead said to Jess, 
 "we'll show 'im the door gey quick." 
 
 Jess just looked, and all the women 
 Icnew how she would take Jamie to 
 her arms. 
 
 We did not know of the London 
 ^woman then, and Jess never knew of 
 her. Jamie's mother never for an hour 
 allowed that he had become anything- 
 l)ut the loving laddie of his youth. 
 
 "I ken "im ower weel," she always 
 said, " my ain Jamie." 
 
 Toward the end she was sure he 
 was dead. I do not know when she 
 first made up her mind to this, or 
 whether it was not merely a phrase 
 for those who wanted to discuss him 
 with her. I know that she still sat 
 at the window looking at the elbow 
 of the brae.
 
 Sees Xeft Blone. 271 
 
 The minister was with her when she 
 died. She was in her chair, and he 
 asked her, as was his custom, if there 
 was any particular chapter which she 
 would like him to read. Since her 
 husbands death she had always askec^ 
 for the fourteenth of John, " Hendry'y 
 chapter," as it is still called among a 
 very few old people in Thrums This 
 time she asked him to read the six- 
 teenth chapter of Genesis. 
 
 ' ' When I came to the thirteenth 
 verse," the minister told me, "'And 
 she called the name of the Lord that 
 spake unto her, Thou God seest me,' 
 she covered her face with her two 
 hands, and said, 'Joey s text, Joey's text. 
 Oh, but I grudged ye sair, Joey.' " 
 
 " I shut the book," the minister said, 
 "when I came to the end of the chap- 
 ter, and then I saw that she was dead. 
 It is my belief that her heart broke 
 one-and-twenty years ago."
 
 272 B MinDow in ^brums. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Jamie's home-coming. 
 
 On a summer day, when the sun 
 was in the weavers' workshops, and 
 bairns hopped solemnly at the game of 
 palaulays, or gayly shook their bottles 
 of sugarelly water into a froth, Jamie 
 came back. The first man to see him 
 was Hookey Crewe, the post. 
 
 "When he came frae London," 
 Hookey said afterward at T'nowhead's 
 pig-sty, "Jamie used to wait for me 
 at Zoar, i' the north end o' Tilliedrum. 
 He carried his box ower the market 
 muir, an' sat on't at Zoar, waitin' for 
 me to catch 'im up. Ay, the day afore 
 yesterday me an' the powny was clat-
 
 Sarnie's IbomcsComing. 273 
 
 terin' by Zoar, when there was Jamie 
 standin' in his identical place. He 
 hadna nae box to sit upon, an' he was 
 far frae bein' weel in order, but I kent 
 'im at aince, an' I saw 'at he was 
 vvaitin' for me. So I drew up, an' 
 waved my hand to 'im. " 
 
 '*I would hae drove straucht by 
 'im, " said T'nowhead ; "them 'at 
 leaves their auld mother to want 
 doesna deserve a lift." 
 
 "Ay, ye say that sittin' there," 
 Hookey said; "but, lads, I saw his 
 face, an' as sure as death it was sic 
 an' awfu' meeserable face 'at I couldna 
 but pu' the powny up. Weel, he 
 stood for the space o' a meenute 
 lookin' straucht at me, as if he would 
 like to come forrit but dauredna, an' 
 syne he turned an' strided awa ower 
 the muir like a huntit thing. I sat still 
 i' the cart, an' when he was far awa 
 he stoppit an' lookit again, but a' my 
 iS
 
 2 74 ^ liClinDow in ^brums. 
 
 cryin' wouldna bring him a step back, 
 an' i' the end I drove on. I've thocht 
 since syne 'at he didna ken whether 
 his fowk was livin' or deid, an' was 
 fleid to speir." 
 
 "He didna ken," said T'nowhead, 
 ''but the faut was his ain. It's ower 
 late to be taen up aboot Jess noo." 
 
 "Ay, ay, T'nowhead," said Hookey, 
 ''it's aisy to you to speak like that 
 Ye didna see his face." 
 
 It is believed that Jamie walked 
 from •Tilliedrum, though no one is 
 known to have met him on the road. 
 Some two hours after the post left him, 
 he was seen by old Rob Angus at the 
 saw-mill. 
 
 " I was sawin' awa wi' a' my 
 micht," Rob said, "an' little Rob was 
 haudin' the booards, for they were 
 silly but things, when something made 
 me look at the window. It couldna 
 hae been a tap on't, for the birds has
 
 ^amic*5 1bomc*Gomina. 275 
 
 used me to that, an' it would hardly 
 be a shadow, for little Rob didna look 
 up. Whatever it was I stoppit i' the 
 middle o' a booard, an' lookit up, an* 
 there I saw Jamie IMcQumpha. He 
 joukit back when our een met, but I 
 saw him weel ; ay, it's a queer thing 
 to say, but he had the face o' a man 
 'at had come straucht frae hell." 
 
 ''I stood starin' at the window," 
 Angus continued, ''after he'd gone, 
 an' Robbie cried oot to ken what was 
 the maiter wi' me. Ay, that brocht 
 me back to mysel', an' I hurried oot 
 to look for Jamie, but he wasna to be 
 seen. That face gae me a turn." 
 
 From the saw-mill to the house at 
 the top of the brae, some may remem- 
 ber, the road is up the commonty. I 
 do not think any one saw Jamie on 
 the commonty, though there were 
 those to say they met him. 
 
 **He gae me sic a look," a woman
 
 2-6 a XQin^ow in Cbrurn^. 
 
 said, ""at I was fleid an* ran hame," 
 but she did not tell the story until 
 Jamie's home-coming- had become a 
 legend. 
 
 There were many women hanging 
 out their washing on the commonty 
 that day, and none of them saw him. 
 I think Jamie must have approached 
 his old home by the fields, and proba- 
 bly he held back until gloaming. 
 
 The young woman who was now 
 mistress of the house at the top of 
 the brae both saw and spoke with 
 Jamie. 
 
 *' Twa or three times," she said, *' I 
 had seen a man walk quick up the 
 brae an' by the door. It was gettin' 
 dark, but I noticed 'at he was short 
 an' thin, an' I would hae said he 
 wasna nane weel if it hadna been 'at he 
 gaed by at sic a steek. He didna look 
 our wy — at least no when he was close 
 up, an' I set im doon for some ga en
 
 Jamie's f)ome*Coming. 277 
 
 aboot body. Xa, I saw naething 
 aboot 'im to be fleid at. 
 
 "The aucht o'clock bell was ringin' 
 when I saw 'im to speak to. My twa- 
 year-auld bairn was standin' aboot the 
 door, an' I was makkin" some porridge 
 for my man's supper when I heard the 
 baimy skirlin'. She came runnin" in 
 to the hoose an' hung i' my wrapper, 
 an' she was hingin, there, when I gaed 
 to the door to see what was wrang. 
 
 ''It was the man I'd seen passin' 
 the hoose. He was standin" at the 
 gate, which, as a'body kens, is but 
 sax steps frae the hoose, an' I won- 
 dered at im neither runnin' awa nor 
 comin' forrit I speired at "im what 
 he meant by terrifyin' a bairn, but he 
 didna say naething. He juist stood. 
 It was ower dark to see his face richt, 
 an' I wasna nane ta'en aback yet, no 
 till he spoke. Oh, but he had a fear- 
 some word when he did speak It
 
 278 B minOow in ^brums. 
 
 was a kind o' like a man hoarse wi' a 
 cauld, an' yet no that either. 
 
 " ' Wha bides i" this hoose ? ' he said, 
 aye standin' there. 
 
 " 'It's Davit Patullos hoose,' I said, 
 * an' 'am the wife. ' 
 
 " ' Whaur's Hendry ]\IcQumpha ? ' he 
 speired. 
 
 " ' He's deid.'I said. 
 
 " He stood still for a fell while. 
 
 *' ' An" his wife, Jess ? ' he said. 
 
 "■ 'She's deid, too,' I said. 
 
 " I thocht he gae a. groan, but it may 
 hae been the gate. 
 
 " ' There was a dochter, Leeby ? ' he 
 said. 
 
 " 'Ay,' I said, 'she was ta'en first' 
 
 "I saw 'im put up his hands to his 
 face, an' he cried oot, * Leeby too ! ' an' 
 syne he kind o' fell agin the dyke. I 
 never kent 'im nor nane o' his fowk, 
 but I had heard aboot them, an' I saw 
 at it would be the son frae London.
 
 5amic's t)omesCominG. 279 
 
 It wasna for me to judge "im, an' I said 
 to 'im would he no come in by an' tak 
 a rest. I was nearer 'im by that time, 
 an' it's an awfu' haver to say 'at he 
 had a face to frichten fowk. It was a 
 rale guid face, but no ava what a body 
 would like to see on a young man. I 
 felt mair like greetin' mysel' when I 
 saw his face than drawin' awa frae 
 'im. 
 
 " But he wouldna come in. ' Rest/ 
 he said, like ane speakin' to 'im- 
 sel', ' na, there's nae mair rest for me.' 
 I didna weel ken w^hat mair to say to 
 'im, for he aye stood on, an' I wasna 
 even sure 'at he saw me. He raised 
 his heid when he heard me tellin' the 
 bairn no to tear my wrapper. 
 
 " ' Dinna set yer heart ower muckle 
 on that bairn,' he cried oot, sharp like. 
 ' I was aince like her, an' I used to hing 
 aboot my mother, too, in that very 
 road • Ay, I thocht I was fond o' her.
 
 28o 
 
 21 MinDow in Zbtwrne, 
 
 an' she thocht it too. Tak a care, 
 wuman, 'at that bairn doesna grow 
 up to murder ye.' 
 
 '*He gae a lauch when he saw me 
 tak haud o' the bairn, an' syne a' at 
 aince he gaed awa quick. But he 
 wasna far doon the brae when he 
 turned an' came back. 
 
 "'Ye'll, mebbe, tell me,' he said, 
 richt low, 'if ye hae the furniture 'at 
 used to be my mother's ? ' 
 
 " ' Na,' I said, 'it was roupit, an' I 
 kenna whaur the things gaed, for me 
 an' my man comes frae Tillidrum.' 
 
 " 'Ye wouldna hae heard,' he said, 
 *wha got the muckle airm-chair 'at 
 used to sit i' the kitchen i' the win- 
 dow 'at looks ower the brae ? ' 
 
 "'I couldna be sure,' I said, 'but 
 there was an airm-chair 'at gaed to 
 Tibbie Birse. If it was the ane ye 
 mean, it a' gaed to bits, an' I think they 
 burned it. It was gey dune.'
 
 Jamie's 1bome*(Iomm0. 281 
 
 " *Ay/ he said, 'it was gey dune/ 
 
 " 'There was the chairs ben i' the 
 room,' he said after a while. 
 
 "I said I thocht Sanders Elshioner 
 had got them at a bargain, because twa 
 o' them was mended wi' glue, an' gey 
 silly, 
 
 '' 'Ay, that's them,' he said, 'they 
 were richt neat mended. It was my 
 mother "at glued them. I mind o' 
 her makkin' the glue, an' warnin' me 
 an' my father no to sit on them. 
 There was the clock too, an' the stool 
 *at my mother got oot an' into her bed 
 wi', an' the basket 'at Leeby carried 
 when she gaed the errands. The straw 
 was aff the handle, an' my father 
 mended it wi' strings.' 
 
 ** *I dinna ken,' I said, ' whaur nane 
 o' thae gaed ; but did yer mother hae 
 a staff.?' 
 
 " ' A little staff, ' he said ; ' it was near 
 black wi' age. She couldna gang frae
 
 282 U TIHlln&ow fn ^brum6. 
 
 the bed to her chair withoot it. It was 
 broadened oot at the foot wi' her lean- 
 in' on't sae muckle.' 
 
 "'I've heard tell,' I said, ''at the 
 dominie up i' Glen Quharity took awa 
 the staff.' 
 
 "He didna speir for nae other thing. 
 He had the gate in his hand, but I din- 
 na think he kent 'at he was swingin' 't 
 back an' forrit. At last he let it go. 
 
 " 'That's a',' he said, 'I maun awa. 
 Good-nicht' an' thank ye kindly.' 
 
 "I watched 'im till he gaed oot o' 
 sicht. He gaed doon the brae." 
 
 We learned afterward from the grave- 
 digger that some one spent great 
 part of that night in the graveyard, and 
 we beheve it to have been Jamie. He 
 walked up the glen to the school-house 
 next forenoon, and I went out to meet 
 him when I saw him coming down the 
 path. 
 
 ' ' Ay," he said, ' ' it's me come back. "
 
 5amic'5 1bomesComing» 283 
 
 I wanted to take him into the house 
 and speak with him of his mother, but 
 he would not cross the threshold. 
 
 ' ' I came oot, " he said, ' ' to see if ye 
 would gie me her staff — no 'at I de- 
 serve 't. " 
 
 I brought out the staff and handed 
 it to him, thinking that he and I would 
 soon meet again. As he took it I saw 
 that his eyes were sunk back into his 
 head. Two great tears hung on his 
 eyelids, and his mouth closed in agony. 
 He stared at me till the tears fell upon 
 his cheeks, and then he went away. 
 
 That evening he was seen by many 
 persons crossing the square. He went 
 up the brae to his old home, and asked 
 leave to go through the house for the 
 last time. First he climbed up into 
 the attic, and stood looking in, his feet 
 still on the stair. Then he came down 
 and stood at the door of the room, but 
 he went into the kitchen.
 
 284 ^ MinDow in ^brums* 
 
 ' ' I'll ask one last favor o' ye, " he said 
 to the woman : ''I would like ye to 
 leave me here alane for juist a little 
 while." 
 
 "I gaed oot," the woman said, 
 ''meanin' to leave 'im to 'imsel', but 
 my bairn wouldna come, an' he said, 
 'Never mind her,' so I left her wi' 'im, 
 an' closed the door. He was in a lang 
 time, but I never kent what he did, for 
 the bairn juist aye greets when I speir 
 at her. 
 
 ''I watched 'im frae the corner win- 
 dow gang doon the brae till he came to 
 the corner. I thocht he turned round 
 there an' stood lookin' at the hoose. 
 He would see me better than I saw 
 him, for my lamp was i' the window, 
 whaur I've heard tell his mother keepit 
 her cruizey. When my man came in 
 I speired at 'im if he'd seen onybody 
 standin' at the corner o' the brae, an' 
 he said he thocht he'd seen somebody
 
 Jamie's IbomesCominQ. 285 
 
 wi' a little staff in his hand. Davit gaed 
 doon to see if he was aye there after 
 supper-time, but he was gone. " 
 
 Jamie was never again seen in 
 Thrums. 
 
 THE END.
 
 XLbc aitcmus OLibratis. 
 
 A choice collection of Standard and Popular books, 
 handsomely printed on fine paper, from large clear type, 
 and bound in faultless styles in handy volume size : 
 
 1. Sesame and Lilies. 3 Lectures. By John Ruskin. 
 
 I. Of King's Treasuries. 
 II. Of Queen's Gardens. 
 III. Of the Mystery of Life. 
 
 2. The Pleasures of Life. By Sir John Lubbock. 
 
 Complete in one volume. (Contains the list of 
 TAe 100 Besi Books.) 
 
 3. The Essays of Lord Francis Bacon, with Memoirs 
 
 and Notes. 
 
 4. Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Anto- 
 
 ninus. Translated by George Long. 
 
 5. A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus, with 
 
 the Encheridion. Translated by George Long. 
 
 6. Essays, Fii-st Series. Ey Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
 
 7. 'Essd.ys, Second Series. By Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
 
 8. Cranford. By Mrs Gaskell. 
 
 9. Of the Imitation of Christ. Four books com- 
 
 plete in one volume. By Thomas A'Kempis. 
 
 10. The Vicar of Wakefield. By Oliver Goldsmith. 
 
 11. Letters, Sentences and Maxims. By Lord Ches- 
 
 terfield. " Masterpieces of good taste, good 
 writing, and good sense." 
 
 12. The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow. A book 
 
 for an Idle Holiday. By Jerome K. Jerome. 
 
 13. Tales from Shakespeare. By Charles and Mary 
 
 Lamb, with an introduction by Rev. Alfred 
 Ainger, M. A. 
 
 (375)
 
 TOe aitemus Xibrari?. 
 
 14. Natural Law in the Spiritual World. By Henrj 
 
 Drummond, F. R. S. E., F. G. S. The rela- 
 tions of Science and Religion clearly expounded. 
 
 15. Addresses. By Henry Drummond, F. R. S. E., 
 
 F. G. S. The Greatest Thing in the World ; 
 PaxVobiscum; The Changed Life; How to 
 Learn How; Dealing with Doubt; Prepara- 
 tion for Learning ; What is a Christian ? The 
 Study of the Bible ; A Talk on Books. 
 
 16. *' My Point of View." Representative selections 
 
 from the works of Professor Drummond. By 
 William Shepard. 
 
 17. The Scarlet Letter. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. 
 
 18. Representative Men. Seven lectures. By Ralph 
 
 Waldo Emerson. 
 
 19. My King and His Service. By Frances Ridley 
 
 Havergal. Containing — My King; Royal 
 Commandments; Royal Bounty; Royal Invi- 
 tation ; Loyal Responses. 
 
 20. Reveries of a Bachelor. By Ik Marvel. A Book 
 
 of the Heart. 
 
 21. The House of the Seven Gables. By Nathaniel 
 
 Hawthorne. 
 
 22. Dream Life. By Ik Marvel. A Companion 
 
 volume to Reveries of a Bachelor. 
 
 23. Rab and His Friends, Marjorie Fleming, etc. 
 
 By John Brown. 
 
 24. Essays of Elia. By Charles Lamb. 
 
 25. Sartor Resartus. By Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 26. Heroes and Hero Worship. By Thomas Carlyle,
 
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