Barrie, J M - Tillyloss Scandal

by Tillyloss Scandal

  Before resuming his triumphal march home, Tammas pricked a hole in each of the buttons, to make sure of his fortune, and wasted some time in deciding that it would be safer to carry

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  the guineas as they were than stowed away in his boots.

  " Sometimes on the road home," he used to say, " I ran my head on a tree or splashed into a bog, for it's sair work to keep your een on twelve buttons when they're all in different places. Lads, I watched them as if they were living things."

  William and I crossed from the drain edge to the hill, where the next scene in the drama was played. The hill is public ground to the north of Thrums, separated from it by the cemetery and a few fields. So steep is the descent that a heavy stene pushed from the south side of the hill-dyke might crash two minutes afterwards against the back walls of Tillyloss. The view from the hill is among the most extensive in Scotland, and it also exposes some dilapidated courts in Thrums that are difficult to find when you are within a few feet of them. Fifty years ago the hill was nearly covered with whins, and it is half hidden in them still, despite the life-work of D. Fittis.

  For some reason that I probably never knew, we always called him D. Fittis, but tradition

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  remembers him as the Whinslayer. At a time when neither William nor I was of an age to play smuggle, D. Fittis's wife lay dying far up Glen Quharity. Her head was on D. Fittis's breast, and the tears on her cheeks came from his eyes. There were no human beings within an hour's trudge of them, and what made D. Fittis gulp was that he must leave Betsy alone while he ran through the long night for the Thrums doctor, or sit with her till she died.

  " Ye'll no leave me, Davie," she said.

  " Oh, Betsy ; if I had the doctor, ye micht live."

  Betsy did not think she could live, but she knew her man writhed in his helplessness, and she told him to go.

  " Put on your cravat, Davie," she said, " and mind and button up your coat."

  " Oh, but I'm loth to gang frae ye," he said when his cravat was round his neck and he stood holding Betsy's hand.

  " God's with me, Davie, and with you," Betsy said, but she could not help clinging to him, and then D. Fittis cried, " Oh, blessed God, Thou who didst in Thy great wisdom make

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  poor folk like me, in Thy hands I leave this woman, and oh, ye micht spare her to me."

  " Ay, but God's will be done," said Betsy. "He kens best."

  It was not God's will that these two should meet again on this earth. At the school-house, which was to become my home, D. Fittis found friends who hastened to his wife's side, and Craigiebuckle lent him a horse on which he galloped off to Thrums. But among the whins of the hill the horse flung him and broke his leg. D. Fittis tried to crawl the rest of the way, but he was found next morning in a wild state among the whins, and he was never a sane man again. For the remainder of his life he had but one passion to cut down the whins, and many a time, at early morn, at noon, and when gloaming was coming on, I have seen him busy among them with his scythe. They g rew as fast as he could cut, but he had loving relatives to tend him, and was still a kindly harmless man, though his laugh was empty.

  William and I waded through the whins to a hollow in the hill, known as the toad's hole. It was here that Haggart, returning boldly to

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  Thrums four days after Chirsty had the last word, fell in with D. Fittis.

  " He was cutting away at the whins," Tam- mas remembered, " and I dinna think that the whole time me and him spoke he ever raised his head ; he was a terrible busy man, D. Fittis."

  Haggart, big with his buttons, had, doubt- less, as he approached the whinslayer, the bosom of a victorious soldier marching home to music. Nevertheless it has been noticed that the war- rior, who thrives on battles, may, even in the hour of his greatest glory, be forever laid prone by a chimney can. For Tammas Haggart, confident that a few minutes would see him in Tillyloss, was preparing a surprise that rooted him to the toad's-hole like a whin. I have a poor memory if I cannot remember Haggart' s own words on this matter.

  "I stood looking at D. Fittis for awhile," he told me, " but I said nothing loud out, though the chances are I was pitying the stocky in my mind. Then I says to him in an ordinary voice, not expecting a dumfounding answer, I says, ' Ay, D. Fittis, and is there onything fresh in Thrums?'

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  " He hacks away at the whins, but says he, « The bural's this day.'

  " ' Man/ I says, ' so there's a funeral ! Wha's dead?'

  " c Ye ken fine/ says he, implying as the thing was notorious.

  " « Na/ I says, ' I dinna ken. Wha is it ? '

  " ' Weel/ says he, ( it's Tammas Haggart.' '

  Tammas always warned us here against attempting to realize his feelings at these mon- strous words. " I dinna say I can picture my position now mysel'," he said, " but one thing sure is that for the moment these buttons slipped clean out of my head. It was an eerie- like thing to see D. Fittis cutting away at the whins after making such an announcement. A common death couldna have affected him less."

  " 'Say wha's dead again, D. Fittis/ I cries, minding that the body was daft.

  " ' Tammas Haggart/ says he, with the ut- most confidence.

  " ' Man, D. Fittis/ I says, with uncontrolled indignation, ' ye're a big liar.'

  " ' Whaever ye are/ says he, ' I would lick ye for saying that if I could spare the time.'

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  " ' Whaever I am ! ' I cries. ' Very weel ye ken I'm Tammas Haggart.'

  " ' Wha's the liar now? ' says he.

  " I was a sort of staggered at this, and I says sharp-like, ' What did Tammas Haggart die of ? '

  " I thocht that would puzzle him, if it was just his daftness that made him say I was gone, but he had his cause of death ready. ' He fell down the quarry/ says he.

  "Weel, lads, his confidence about the thing sickened me, and I says, ' Leave these whins alone, D. Fittis, and tell me all about it. '

  " ' I canna stop my work/ he says, ' but Tam- mas Haggart fell down the quarry four nichts since. Ou, it was in the middle of the nicht, and all Thrums were sleeping when it was wakened by one awful scream. It wakened the whole town. Ay, a heap of folk set up sudden in their beds.'

  " ' And was that Tammas Haggart falling down the quarry ? ' I says, earnest-like, for I was a kind of awestruck.

  " ' It was so/ says he, tearing away in the whins.

  " ' They didna find the body, though/ I says, looking down on mysel' with satisfaction.

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  " ( Ay/ says he, ( the masons found it the next morning, and there was a richt rush of folk to see it.'

  " ' Ye had been there ? ' I says.

  " ( I was/ says he, ( and so was the wifie as lives beneath me. She took her bairn too, for she said, " It'll be something for the little ane to boast about having seen when he grows bigger." Ay, man, it had been a michty fall, and the face wasna recognizable.'

  " f How did they ken, then/ says I, ' that it was Tammas Haggart ? '

  " ' Ou/ says he at once, e they kent him by his top-coat.'

  " Lads, of course I saw in a klink that the man as stole my top-coat had fallen down the quarry and been mista'en for me. Weel, I nipped mysel' at that. It's an unco thing to say, but I admit I was glad to have this proof, as ye may call it, that it was really me as was standing in the toad's hole.

  " ' When did ye say the bural was ? ' I asked him.

  " ' It's at half three this day/ he says, e and I'll warrant it's half three now, so if ye want to be sure ye're no Tammas Haggart ye can see him buried.'

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  " I took a long look at D. Fittis, and it's gospel I tell ye when I say I never liked him from that minute. Then I hurried up the hill to the cemetery dyke, and sat down on it. Lads, I sat there, just at the very corner, whaur they've since put a cross to mark
the spot, and I watched my ain bural. Yes, there I sat for near an hour, me, Tammas Haggart, an ordi- nary man at that time, getting sich an experi- ence as has been denied to the most highly edi- cated in the land. I'm no boasting, but facts is facts.

  " I'm no saying it wasna a fearsome sight, for I had a terrible sinking at the heart, and a mortal terror took grip of me, so that I couldna have got off that dyke except by falling. Ay, and when the grave was filled up and the mourners had dribbled away, I sat on with some uncommon thochts in my mind. It would be wearing on to four o'clock when I got up shivering, and walked back to whaur D. Fittis was working. There was a question I wanted to put to him.

  " ' D. Fittis,' I says, ( was there ony of the Balribbie folk as visited Tammas Haggart's wife in her affliction ? '

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  " ' Ay,' says the crittur, trying to break a supple whin with his foot, e the wifie as lives beneath me was in the house at Tillyloss when in walks a grand leddy.'

  " ' So, so/ I says, ' and was Chirsty ta'en up like about her man being dead ? '

  " ' Ay,' says D. Fittis, ( she was greeting, but as soon as the grand woman comes in, Chirsty takes the wifie as lives beneath me into a cor- ner and whispers to her.'

  " * D. Fittis,' I says, sternly, ' tell me what Chirsty Todd whispered, for muckle depends on it.'

  " Weel,' he says, ' she whispered, " If the leddy calls the corpse 'Jeames' dinna conter- dict her." '

  " I denounced Chirsty in my heart at that, not being sufficient of a humorist to make allowance for women, and I says, just to see if the thing was commonly kent, I says,

  " ' And wha would Jeames be ? '

  "'I dinna ken,' says D. Fittis, 'but maybe you're Jeames yersel', when ye canna be Tammas Haggart.'

  " Lads, ye see now that it was D. Fittis as put it into my head to do what J subsequently

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  did. ' Jeames,' I said, ' I'll be frae this hour/ and without another word I walked off in the opposite direction frae Thrums.

  " I dinna pretend as it was Chirsty's behav- ior alone that sent me wandering through the land. I had a dread of that funeral for one thing, and for another I had twelve gold guineas about me. Moreover, the ambition to travel took hold of me, and I thocht Chirsty's worst trials was over at ony rate, and that she was used to my being dead now."

  " But the well-wisher, Tammas ? " we would say at this stage.

  " Ay, I'm coming to that. I walked at a michty stride alang the hill and round by the road at the back of the three-cornered wood to near as far as the farm of Glassal, and there I sat down at the roadside. I was beginning to be mair anxious about Chirsty now, and to thiok I was fell fond of her for all her exasperating ways. I was torn with conflicting emotions, of which the one said, « Back ye go to Tillyloss,' but the other says, ( Ye'll never have a chance like this again.' Weel, I could not persuade mysel', though I did my best, to gang back to my loom and hand ower the siller to Chirsty,

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  and so, as ye all ken, I compromised. I hur- ried back to the hill "

  " But ye've forgotten the cheese ? "

  " Na, listen : I hurried back to the hill, wondering how I could send a guinea to Chirsty, and I minded that I had about half a pound of cheese in my pouch, the which I had got at a farm in Glen Quharity. Weel, I shoved a guinea into the cheese, and back I goes to the hill to D. Fittis.

  " ' D. Fittis/ I says, ( I ken you're an honest man, and I want ye to take this bit of cheese to Chirsty Todd.'

  "'Ay/ he says, Til take it, but no till it's ower dark for me to see the whins.'

  "What a busy crittur D. Fittis was, and to no end ! I left the cheese with him, and was off again, when he cries me back.

  " ( Wha will I say sent the cheese ? ' he asks. I considered a minute, and then I says, ' Tell her/ I says, ' that it is frae a well-wisher.'

  " These were my last words to D. Fittis, for I was feared other folk micht see me, and away I ran. Yes, lads, I covered twenty miles that day, never stopping till I got to Dundee."

  It was Haggart's way, when he told his

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  story, to pause now and again for comments, and this was a point where we all wagged our heads, the question being whether his assump- tion of the character of a well-wisher was not a clear proof of humor. " That there was humor in it," Haggart would say, when sum- ming up, " I can now see, but compared to what was to follow, it was neither here nor there. My humor at that time was like a lad- die trying to open a stiff gate, and even when it did squeeze past, the gate closed again with a snap. Ay, lads, just listen, and ye'll hear how it came about as the gate opened wide, never to close again."

  " Ye had the stuff in ye, though," Look- aboutyou would say, "and therefore, I'm of opinion that ye've been a humorist frae the cradle."

  "Little you ken about it," Haggart would answer. "No doubt I had the material of humor in me, but it was raw. I'm thinking cold water and kail and carrots and a penny bone are the materials broth is made of ? "

  " They are, they are."

  " Ay, but it's no broth till it boils?"

  " So it's no. Ye're richt, Tammas."

  4

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  "Weel, then, it's the same with humor. Considering me as a humorist, ye micht say that when my travels began I had put mysel' on the fire to boil."

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  CHAPTER IV.

  THE WANDERINGS OF HAGGART.

  NOT having a Haggart head on my shoulders I dare not attempt to follow the explorer step by step during his wanderings of the next five months. In that time he journeyed through at least one country, unconsciously absorbing everything that his conjurer's wand could turn to humor when the knack came to him. This admission he has himself signed in conversa- tion.

  " Ay," he said, " I was like a blind beggar in these days, and the dog that led me by a string was my impulses."

  Most of us let this pass, with the reflection that Haggart could not have said it in his pre~ humorous days, but Snecky Hobart put in his word.

  " Ye were hardly like the blind beggar,"

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  he said, " for ye didna carry a tanker for folk to put bawbees in."

  Snecky explained afterwards that he only spoke to give Haggart an opportunity. It was, indeed, the way of all of us, when we saw an opening, to coax Tammas into it. So sportsmen of another kind can point out the hare to their dogs, and confidently await results.

  " Ye're wrang, Snecky," replied Haggart.

  As ever, before shooting his bolt, he then paused. His mouth was open, and he had the appearance of a man hearkening intensely for some communication from below. There were those who went the length of hinting that on these occasions something inside jumped to his mouth and told him what to

  " Yes, Snecky," he said at last, " ye're wrang. My mouth was the tanker, and the folk I met had all to pay toll, as ye may say, for they dropped things into my mouth that my humor turns to as muckle account as though they were bawbees. I'm no sure "

  " There's no many things ye're no sure of, Tammas."

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  " And this is no one of them. It's just a form of expression, and if ye interrupt me again, Snecky Hobart, I'll say a sarcastic thing about you that instant. What I was to say was that I'm no sure but what a humorist swallows everybody whole that he falls in with."

  The impossibility of telling everything that befell Haggart in his wanderings is best proved in his own words :

  " My adventures," he said, " was so surpris- ing thick that when I cast them over in my mind I'm like a man in a corn-field, and every stalk of corn an adventure. Lads, it's useless to expect me to give you the history of ilka stalk. I wrax out my left hand, and I grip something, namely, an adventure ; or I wrax out my right hand and grip something, namely, another adventure. Well, by keeping straight on in ony direction we wade through advent- ures till we get out
of the field, that is to say, till we land back at Thrums. Ye say my ad- ventures sounds different on different nichts. Precisely, for it all depends on which direction I splash off in."

  Without going the length of saying that

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  Haggart splashed more than was necessary, I may perhaps express regret that he never saw his way to clearing up certain disputed pas- sages in his wanderings. I would, I know, be ill-thought of among the friends who survive him if I stated for a fact that he never reached London. There was a general wish that he should have taken London in his travels, and if Haggart had a weakness it was his reluc- tance to disappoint an audience. I must own that he trod down his corn-field pretty thor- oughly before his hand touched the corn-stalk called London, and that his London reminis- cences never seemed to me to have quite the air of reality that filled his recollections of Edinburgh. Admitted that he confirmed glibly as an eye-witness the report that London houses have no gardens (except at the back), it remains undoubted that Craigiebuckle con- fused him with the question :

  " What do they charge in London for half- a-pound of boiling beef and a penny bone ? "

  Haggart answered, but after a pause, as if he had forgotten the price, which scarcely seems natural. However, I do not say that he was never in London, and certainly his

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  curious adventures in it are still retailed, especially one with an ignorant policeman who could not tell him which was the road to Thrums, and another with the doorkeeper of the House of Parliament, who, on being asked hy Haggart " How much was to pay ? " fool- ishly answered " What you please."