TILLYLOSS SCANDAL
BY
JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE
AUTHOR OF "THE LITTLE MINISTER," " AULD LIGHT IDYLLS," "A WINDOW IN THRUMS," ETC.
NEW YORK
LOVELL, CORYELL & COMPANY
5 AND 7 EAST SIXTEENTH STREET
CONTENTS.
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL. PAGE.
CHAPTER I. In which we approach Haggart hat
in hand 5
CHAPTER II. Containing the circumstances which
led to the Departure of Haggart 16
CHAPTER III. Shows how Haggart sat on a dyke
looking at his own funeral 32
CHAPTER IV. The Wanderings of Haggart 51
CHAPTER V. The Return of Haggart 68
CHAPTER VI. In which a birth is recorded 84
How GAVIN BIRSE PUT IT TO MAG LOWRIE 101
LIFE IN A COUNTRY MANSE.
CHAPTER I. Janet Ill
CHAPTER II. Janet's Curiosity 122
CHAPTER III. Teacher M' Queen 132
CHAPTER IY. The Post 142
CHAPTER Y . A Wedding in the Smiddy 150
DITE DEUCHARS 160
THE MINISTER'S GOWN 170
4 CONTENTS.
PAGE.
THE CAPTAIN OF THE SCHOOL 177
A POWERFUL DRUG 185
EVERY MAN His OWN DOCTOR 195
SHUTTING A MAP. A NOTE OF WARNING 207
AN INVALID IN LODGINGS 217
THE MYSTERY OF TIME-TABLES 227
MENDING THE CLOCK 235
THE BIGGEST Box IN THE WORLD 247
THE COMING DRAMATIST 259
IT.., 265
/
s
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL
CHAPTER I.
IN WHICH WE APPROACH HAGGART, HAT IN HAND.
ACCORDING to those who have thought the thing over, it would defy the face of clay to set forth this prodigious affair of Tillyloss, the upshot of which was that Tammas Haggart became a humorist. It happened so far back as the Long Year, so called by reason of dis- ease in the potato crop ; and doubtless the house, which still stands, derides romance to those who cavil at an outside stair. Further- more, the many who only knew Haggart in his later years, whether personally or through written matter or from Thrums folk who have traveled, will not readily admit that he may once have been an every-day man. There is
6 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL.
also against me the vexing 1 practice of the farmer of Lookaboutyou, who never passes Tillyloss, if there is a friend of mine within earshot, without saying :
" Gravestane or no gravestane, Tammas Haggart would have been a humorist."
Lookaboutyou thus implies that he knew Haggart for a man of parts when the rest of us were blind, and it is tantalizing beyond ordinary to see his word accepted in this mat- ter by people who would not pay him for a drill of potatoes without first stepping it to make sure of the length.
I have it from Tammas Haggart that until the extraordinary incident occurred which I propose telling as he dropped it into my mouth, he was such a man as myself. True, he was occasionally persuaded by persons of Look- aboutyou' s stamp to gloss over this admission, as incredible on the face of it, but that was in his last years, when he had become something of a show, and was in a puzzle about himself. Of the several reasons he gave me in proof of a non-humorous period in his life the following seem worthy of especial attention :
First, that for some years after his marriage
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL. 1
he had never thought of himself as* more nicely put together than other men. He could not say for certain whether he had ever thought of himself at all, his loom taking up so much of his time.
Second, that Chirsty was able to aggravate him by saying that if which was which she would have married James Pitbladdo.
Third, that he was held of little account by the neighbors, who spoke of his living " above Lunan's shoppy," but never localized the shop as " below Haggart's house."
Fourth, that while on his wanderings he experienced certain novel and singular sensa- tions in his inside, which were probably his humor trying to force a passage.
Fifth, that in the great scene which ended his wanderings, his humor burst its banks like a dam, and had flowed in burns ever since.
During nearly forty years we contrived now and again to harness Tammas to his story, but often he would stop at the difficulty of realiz- ing the man he must have been in his pre- humorous days, and remark, in his sarcastic way, that the one Haggart could not fathom the other. Thus our questionings sometimes
8 A TILLY LOSS SCAN UAL.
ended in silence, when we all looked in trouble at the fire and then went home. As for starting him on the story when he was not in the vein, it was like breasting the brae against a high wind. When the events happened I was only a lad. I cannot send my mind back to the time when I could pass Haggart without the side-glance nearly all Thrums offered to his reputation, and he is best pictured hunkering at Tillyloss, one of a row of his admirers. After eight o'clock it was the pleasant custom of the weav- ers to sit in the open against a house or dyke, their knees near their chins and their ears ready for Haggart. Then his face would be contracted in pain as some strange idea both- ered him and he searched for its humorous aspect. Perhaps ten minutes afterwards his face would expand, he would slap his knees, and we knew that the struggle was over. It was one of his ways, disliked at the time, yet admired on reflection, not to take us into the secret of his laughter ; but he usually ended by looking whimsically in the direction of the burying-ground, when we were perfectly aware of the source of the joke, and those of us nudged each other who were not scared. Un-
A TILLY LOSS SCAN UAL. 9
til the spell was broken we might sit thus for the space of a quarter of an hour, none speak- ing, yet in the completest sympathy, because we were all thinking of the same thing, and that a gravestone.
Tillyloss is three broken rows of houses in the east end of Thrums, with gardens between them, nearly every one of which used to con- tain a pig-sty. There are other ways of getting into the gardens than by windows, for those who are sharp at knowing a gate when it looks like something else. Three or four other houses stand in odd corners, blocking the nar- row road, which dodges through Tillyloss like a hunted animal. Starting from the west end of the suburb, as Tillyloss will be called as soon as we can say the word without smirking, the road climbs straight from the highway to the uppermost row, where it runs against a two- story house. Here we leave it, as many a curi- ous stranger has done, to get out of Tillyloss the best way it can, for that two-storied house is where Tammas Haggart lived, up the out- side stair, the west room.
Tammas flitted to the Tenements a year after he became a humorist, and it is an ex-
10 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL.
traordinary tribute to his memory that the road from the pump up to his old residence in Tillyloss is still called Haggart's Roady. Many persons have inhabited his room since he left it, but though the younger ones hold out for an individuality of their own, the gray- beards still allow that it is Haggart's house. To this day Tillyloss residents asked for a landmark to their dwellings may reply, " I'm sax houses south frae Haggart's," or " Onybody can point out Haggart's stair to you. Ay, weel, gang to that, and then come back three doors."
The entrance to Lunan's shop was beneath Haggart's stair, which provided a handy retir- ing place in wet weather. Lunan's personality had the enormous advantage of a start of Tammas's, as has been seen, yet Haggart has practically swallowed Lunan, who in his more crabbed age scowled at the sight-seers that came to look at the second story of the house and ignored the shop. As boys we envied, more than learning, the c
ompanion whose father kept a shop, and I remember Lunan's son going with his fists for the banker's son who though he never really believed it said that
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL. 11
his father could have a shop if he liked. Yet the grand romance of Haggart choked the fame of Lunan even with the lads who played dumps at Tillyloss, and the shop came to be localized as "beneath Haggart's stair." Even Lunan's stoutness, which was a landmark in itself, could not save him. The passage be- tween his counter and the wall was so narrow and the rest of his shop so full of goods that before customers could enter Lunan had to come out, but in this quandary his dignity never left him. He always declined to join the company who might be listening on the stair to Tammas's adventures, but some say he was not above hearkening through a hole in one of the steps.
The exact date of Haggart's departure can- not be determined, though it was certainly in the back end of the year 1834. He had then been married to Chirsty a little short of three years. His age would be something beyond thirty, but he never knew his birthday, and I have heard him say that one of the few things he could not understand was how the relatives of a person deceased could know the precise age to send to the newspapers.
12 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL.
What is, however, known for certain is that Tammas's adventures began within a week of the burial of old Mr. Yuill, the parish minister. There had been a to-do about who should preach the funeral sermon, two ministers hav- ing words over it, and all Thrums knowing that Mr. Yuill had left seven pounds to the preacher. At this time Haggart did not belong to the Auld Lichts, nor was he even regular in his attendance at the parish church, but the dispute about the funeral sermon interested him greatly, and when he heard that the session was meeting to decide the affair, he agreed with Chirsty that he might do worse than hang around the door on the chance of getting early information. There was a small crowd at the door on the same errand, all of whom noticed, though they little thought it would give them a topic to their dying day, that Haggart had on his topcoat. It had been an old one of Mr. YunTs, presented to Tammas, who could not fill it, but refused to have it altered, out of respect to the minister's memory. It has also been fondly recalled of Tammas that he was only shaven on the one side, as if Chirsty had sent him to the meeting in a hurry, and that
A TILLY LOSS SCANDAL. 13
he had not the look of a man who was that very night to enter upon experiences which would confound the world.
" It was an impressive spectacle," Snecky Hobart said subsequently, "to see Tammas discussing the burial sermon, just as keen as me and T'nowhead, and then to think that within twenty-four hours the very ministers themselves would be discussing him."
" He said to me it had been a dowie day," T'nowhead always remembered.
" He shoved me when he was crushing 1 in nearer the door," was Hender Robbie's boast.
" But he took a snuff out of my mull."
" Maybe he did, but I was the last he spoke to. He said, ' Weel, Dan'l, I'll be stepping back to Tilly.' "
" Ay, but I passed him at the Tenements, and he says, ' Davit/ he says, and I says, « Tammas.' "
" Very like ; but I was carrying a ging of water frae Susie Linn's pump, and Tammas said would I give him a drink, the which I did."
"Lads, I'm no sure but what I noticed a
14 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL.
far-away look in Tammas's face, as if there was something on his mind."
" If ye did, Jeames, ye kept it to your- 01'."
" Ay, but I meant to mention it when I got hame."
" How did ye no, then ? " " How does a body no do many a thing ? I dinna say I noticed the look, but just that I'm no sure but what I noticed it."
So we all did our best to recall Haggart's last words and looks on that amazing evening, even the Auld Licht minister, who cared little for popularity, claiming as a noticeable thing to have walked behind Tammas and observed that his handkerchief was banging out of his north pocket. But though all these memories have their value as relics, we have Tammas's own word for it that from the time he reached the session house until his return to Tillyloss he felt much as usual.
" Ay," he would say in his impressive way, " many a thing may happen between the aucht and the ten-o'clock bells, but I told neither T'nowhead nor Snecky nor none of them as ony thing was to happen that nicht."
A TILLY LOSS SCANDAL. 15
" Ye did not, Tammas ; na, na, for if ye had I would have heard ye, me being there."
" Ay, but ye couldna say my reason for no telling ye ? "
Na."
" Weel, then, my reason was just this that I didna ken myselV
16 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL.
CHAPTER II.
CONTAINING THE CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH LED TO THE DEPARTURE OF HAGGART.
IN the future Haggart's mind was to become a book in which he could turn up any page wanted, but its early stage was a ravel not worth harking back to unless for purposes of comparison. He could never, therefore, when questioned, say for certain that between the session house and Tillyloss he had met a soul except the Auld Licht minister, to see whom was naturally to feel him. At the foot of Tilly, however, he was taken aback to find a carriage and two horses standing.
The sight knocked all the news he had heard about the funeral sermon out of his head, and left him with just sufficient sense to put his back to the wall and assume the appearance of a man who would begin to think directly. First he gazed at the horses, and said,
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL. 17
" Ay."
Then he looked less carefully at the coach- man.
" Yes/' he said.
Lastly, he gave both eyes to the carriage, and corroborated his previous remarks with,
" Umpha."
In themselves these statements suggest little, though they really left Haggart master of the situation. The first was his own answer to the question, " Will these be Balribbie's beasts ? " and the second was merely a stepping-stone to the third, which was a short way of saying that the ladies had called on Chirsty at last.
Tammas's wife, Chirsty, had been a servant at Balribbie, the mistress of which had promised, as most of Thrums was aware, to call on her some day.
" Ye'li be none the better though she does call," Haggart used to say, to which Chirsty 's inhuman answer was,
" Maybe no ; but it'll make every other woman in Tilly loss miserable."
Every day for a year Chirsty awaited the coming of the ladies, after which it was the neighbors who spoke of the promised visit
2
18 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL.
rather than herself. But evidently the ladies had come after all, and the question for Tammas was whether to face them or step about Tilly until they had driven away. It is difficult, no doubt, to believe that there ever was a time when Haggart would rather have hidden be- hind a dyke than converse with the gentry, but I have this from himself. He, whose greatest topic in the future was to be, "Women, and Why we should Put up with Them^ however Unreasonable, could not think of the proper thing to say to the ladies of Balribbie.
" Losh, losh," he has said, when casting his mind back to this period, " it's hard to me to believe that the unhumorous man swithering at the foot of Tilly thatnicht was really Tammas Haggart, and no just somebody dressed up in Tammas Haggart' s image."
If it was hard to Tammas, how much harder to the like of us.
Without actually deciding to show tail, Tammas continued to lean heavily against the wall, where he was not conspicuous to two women who passed a little later with baskets on their arms.
" I assure ye Chirsty's landed," one of
A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL. 19
them said, " for she has her grand folk after all."
" Ay," said the other, " and Tammas is no in, so she'll no need to explain how her man's so lang and thin by what he was when she ex- hibited him at Balribbie."
" What do ye mean, ye limmers ? " cried Haggart, stepping into sight. " I was never at Balribbie."
They slipped past him giggling, with the parting shots
" Chirsty can tell ye what we mean," and " And so can Jeames Pitbladdo." Haggart probably sent his under lip over the upper one, for that was his way when troubled. He was aware that Chirsty had very nearly married Pitbladdo, but these women meant some- thing else. Without knowing that he was doing so, he marched straight for his house, and was half-way up the outside stair when the door opened, and two ladies, accompanied by Chirsty, came out. Haggart did not even know what they were like, though he was to become such an authority on the female face and figure. He stopped, wanting the courage to go on and the discourtesy to turn back. So he merely stood politely in their way.
20 A TILLYLOSS SCANDAL.
Chirsty gave her curls an angry shake as she saw him, but he had to be acknowledged.
" This is himsel'," she said, with the con- tempt a woman naturally feels for her husband.
Thus cornered, Tammas opened his mouth wide, to have his photograph taken, as it were, by the two ladies. The elder smiled and said,
"I am glad to make your acquaintance, James."
Tammas thinks she said more, but could never swear to it. To keep up with her quick way of speaking was a race for him, and at the word " James " he stumbled, as against a stone. When he came to himself,
" Thank ye, mem," he said, " but my name "
Here Chirsty gave him a look that made him lose his words.
" Let the leddies pass, can ye no ? " she exclaimed.
Barrie, J M - Tillyloss Scandal Page 1