The Penguin Book of the British Short Story, Volume 1

by Philip Hensher

  James Mashlam was a decent, douce, hard-working, careful man, and his wife was to all wives the very patron of frugality; but, with all their ettling, they could scarcely make the two ends of the year to meet. Owing to this, when it was heard in the parish that she had brought forth a Jacob and Esau, there was a great condolence; and the birth that ought to have caused both mirth and jocundity was not thought to be a gentle dispensation. But short-sighted is the wisdom of man and even of woman likewise; for, from that day, James Mashlam began to bud and prosper, and is now the toppingest man far or near; and his prosperity sprang out of what we all thought would be a narrowing of his straitened circumstances.

  All the gentry of the country-side, when they heard the tydings, sent Mrs Mashlam many presents, and stocked her press with cleeding for her and the family. It happened, also, that, at this time, there was a great concourse of Englishers at the castle with my Lord; and one of them, a rattling young gentleman, proposed that they should raise a subscription for a race-purse; promising, that, if his horse won, he would give the purse for the behoof of the twins. Thus it came to pass, that a shower of gold one morning fell on James Mashlam, as he was holding the plough; for that English ramplor’s horse, lo and behold! won the race, and he came over with all the company, with the purse in his hand full of golden guineas galloping upon James; and James and his wife sat cloking on this nest-egg, till they have hatched a fortune; for the harvest following, his eldest son was able to join the shearers, and from that day plenty, like a fat carlin, visited him daily. Year after year his childer that were of the male gender grew better and better helps: so that he enlarged his farm, and has since built the sclate house by the water side; that many a one, for its decent appearance, cannot but think it is surely the minister’s manse.

  From that time I too got a lift in the world; for it happened, that a grand lady, in the family way, came on a visit to the castle, and by some unaccountable accident she was prematurely brought to bed there. No doctor being at hand nearer than the burgh town, I was sent for and, before one could be brought, I had helped into the world the son and heir of an ancient family; for the which, I got ten golden guineas, a new gown that is still my best honesty, and a mutch that many a one came to see for it is made of a French lace. The lady insisted on me to wear it at the christening; which the Doctor was not overly pleased to hear tell of, thinking that I might in time clip the skirts of his practice.

  For a long time after the deliverance of that lady I had a good deal to do in the cottars’ houses; and lucky it was for me that I had got the guineas aforesaid, for the commonalty have not much to spare on an occasion; and I could not help thinking how wonderful are the ways of Providence, for the lady’s gift enabled me to do my duty among the cottars with a lighter heart than I could have afforded to do had the benison been more stinted.

  All the remainder of that year, the winter and the next spring, was without a remarkable: but just on the eve of summer, a very comical accident happened.

  There was an old woman that come into the parish, nobody could tell how, and was called Lucky Nanse, who made her bread by distilling peppermint. Some said that now and then her house had the smell of whiskey; but how it came, whether from her still or the breath of her nostrils, was never made out to a moral certainty. This carlin had been in her day a by-ordinair woman, and was a soldier’s widow forby.

  At times she would tell stories of marvels she had seen in America, where she said there was a moose so big that a man could not lift its head. Once, when old Mr Izet, the precentor, to whom she was telling anent this beast, said it was not possible, she waxed very wroth, and knocking her neives together in his face, she told him that he was no gentleman to misdoubt her honour: Mr Izet, who had not much of the sweet milk of human kindness in his nature, was so provoked at this freedom, that he snapped his fingers as he turned to go away, and said she was not better than a ne’er-do-weel camp-randy. If she was oil before she was flame now, and dancing with her arms extended, she looted down, and, grasping a gowpin of earth in each hand, she scattered it with an air to the wind, and cried with a desperate voice, that she did not value his opinion at the worth of that dirt.

  By this time the uproar had disturbed the clachan, and at every door the women were looking out to see what was the hobble-show; some with bairns in their arms and others with weans at their feet. Among the rest that happened to look out was Mrs Izet, who, on seeing the jeopardy that her gudeman was in, from that rabiator woman, ran to take him under her protection. But it was a rash action, for Lucky Nanse stood with her hands on her henches and daured her to approach, threatening, with some soldier-like words, that if she came near she would close her day-lights.

  Mrs Izet was terrified, and stood still.

  Home with you, said Nanse, ye mud that ye are, to think yourself on a par with pipeclay, with other hetradox brags, that were just a sport to hear. In the meantime, the precentor was walking homeward, and called to his wife to come away, and leave that tempest and whirlwind with her own wrack and carry.

  Lucky Nanse had, by this time, spent her ammunition, and, unable to find another word sufficiently vicious, she ran up to him and spat in his face.

  Human nature could stand no more, and the precentor forgetting himself and his dignity in the parish, lifted his foot and gave her a kick, which caused her to fall on her back. There she lay sprawling and speechless, and made herself at last lie as like a corpse, as it was possible. Every body thought that she was surely grievously hurt, though Mr Izet said his foot never touched her; and a hand-barrow was got to carry her home. All present were in great dismay, for they thought Mr Izet had committed a murder and would be hanged in course of law; but I may be spared from describing the dolorosity that was in our town that night.

  Lucky Nanse being carried home on the barrow like a carcase, was put to bed; where, when she had lain some time, she opened a comical eye for a short space, and then to all intents and purposes seemed in the dead throes. It was just then that I, drawn into the house by the din of the straemash, looked over a neighbour’s shoulder; but no sooner did the artful woman see my face than she gave a skirle of agony, and cried that her time was come, and the pains of a mother were upon her; at which to hear, all the other women gave a shout, as if a miracle was before them, for Nanse was, to all appearance, threescore; but she for a while so enacted her stratagem that we were in a terrification lest it should be true. At last she seemed quite exhausted, and I thought she was in the natural way, when in a jiffy she bounced up with a derisive gaffaw, and drove us all pell-mell out of the house. The like of such a ploy had never been heard of in our countryside. I was, however, very angry to be made such a fool of in my profession before all the people, especially as it turned out that the old woman was only capering in her cups.

  Sometime after this exploit another come-to-pass happened that had a different effect on the nerves of us all. This fell out by a sailor’s wife, a young woman that came to lie in from Sandy-port with her mother, a most creditable widow, that kept a huckstry shop for the sale of parliament cakes, candles, bone-combs, and prins, and earned a bawbee by the eydency of her spinning wheel.

  Mrs Spritsail, as the young woman was called, had a boding in her breast that she could not overcome, and was a pitiable object of despondency, from no cause; but women in her state are often troubled by similar vapours. Hers, however, troubled everybody that came near her, and made her poor mother almost persuaded that she would not recover.

  One night when she expected to be confined, I was called in: but such a night as that was! At the usual hour, the post woman, Martha Dauner, brought a letter to the old woman from Sandy-port, sealed with a black wafer; which, when Mrs Spritsail saw, she grew as pale as a clout, and gave a deep sigh. Alas! it was a sigh of prophecy; for the letter was to tell that her husband, John Spritsail, had tumbled overboard the night before, and was drowned.

  For some time the young widow sat like an image, making no moan: it was very frig
htful to see her. By and by, her time came on, and although it could not be said that her suffering was by common, she fell back again into that effigy state, which made her more dreadful to see than if she had been a ghost in its winding sheet; and she never moved from the posture she put herself in till all was over, and the living creature was turned into a clod of church-yard clay.

  This for a quiet calamity is the most distressing in my chronicle, for it came about with little ceremony. Nobody was present with us but only her sorrowful mother, on whose lap I laid the naked new-born babe. Soon after, the young widow departed to join her gudeman in paradise; but as it is a mournful tale, it would only be to hurt the reader’s tender feelings to make a more particular account.

  All my peradventures were not, however, of the same doleful kind; and there is one that I should mention, for it was the cause of meikle jocosity at the time and for no short season after.

  There lived in the parish a very old woman, upwards of fourscore: she was as bent in her body as a cow’s horn, and she supported herself with a staff in one hand, and for balance held up her gown behind with the other; in short, she was a very antideluvian, something older than seemed the folk at that time of the earth.

  This ancient crone was the grandmother to Lizzy Dadily, a light-headed winsome lassie, that went to service in Glasgow; but many months she had not been there when she came back again, all mouth and een; and on the same night her granny, old Maudelin, called on me. It was at the gloaming: I had not trimmed my crusie, but I had just mended the fire, which had not broken out so that we conversed in an obscurity.

  Of the history of old Maudelin I had never before heard ony particulars; but her father, as she told me, was out in the rebellion of Mar’s year, and if the true king had gotten his rights, she would not have been a needful woman. This I, however, jealouse was vanity; for although it could not be said that she was positively an ill-doer, it was well known in the town that old as she was, the conduct of her house in many points was not the best. Her daughter, the mother of Lizzy, was but a canary-headed creature. What became of her we never heard, for she went off with the soldiers one day, leaving Lizzy, a bastard bairn. How the old woman thereafter fenn’t, in her warsle with age and poverty, was to many a mystery, especially as it was now and then seen that she had a bank guinea note to change, and whom it cam frae was a marvel.

  Lizzy coming home, her granny came to me, as I was saying, and after awhile conversing in the twilight about this and that, she told me that she was afraid her oe had brought home her wark, and that she didna doubt they would need the sleight of my hand in a short time, for that Lizzy had only got a month’s leave to try the benefit of her native air; that of Glasgow, as with most young women, not agreeing with her.

  I was greatly taken aback to her hear talk in such a calm and methodical manner concerning Lizzy, whom I soon found was in that condition that would, I’m sure, have drawn tears of the heart’s blood from every other grandmother in the clachan. Really I was not well pleased to hear the sinful carlin talk in such a good-e’en and good-morn way about a guilt of that nature; and I said to her, both hooly and fairly, that I was not sure if I could engage myself in the business, for it went against my righteous opinion to make myself a mean of filling the world with natural children.

  The old woman was not just pleased to hear me say this, and without any honey on her lips, she replied,

  ‘Widow Blithe, this is an unco strain! and what for will ye no do your duty to Lizzy Dadily; for I must have a reason, because the minister or the magistrates of the borough shall ken of this.’

  I was to be sure a little confounded to hear the frail though bardy old woman thus speak to her peremptors, but in my mild and methodical manner I answered and said,

  ‘That no person in a trade with full hands ought to take a new turn; and although conscience, I would allow, had its weight with me, yet there was a stronger reason in my engagements to others.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Maudelin, and hastily rising, she gave a rap with her staff, and said, ‘that there soon would be news in the land that I would hear of’; and away she went, stotting out at the door, notwithstanding her age, like a birsled pea.

  After she was gone, I began to reflect; and I cannot say that I had just an ease of mind, when I thought of what she had been telling anent her oe: but nothing more came to pass that night.

  The following evening, however, about the same hour, who should darken my door but the minister himself, a most discreet man, who had always paid me a very sympathysing attention from the death of my gudeman, so I received him with the greatest respect, wondering what could bring him to see me at that doubtful hour. But no sooner had he taken a seat in the elbow chair than he made my hair stand on end at the wickedness and perfidy of the woman sec.

  ‘Mrs Blithe,’ said he, ‘I have come to have a serious word with you, and to talk with you on a subject that is impossible for me to believe. Last night that old Maudelin, of whom the world speaks no good, came to me with her grand-daughter from Glasgow, both weeping very bitterly; the poor young lass had her apron tail at her face, and was in great distress.’

  ‘What is the matter with you,’ said I, quoth the minister; ‘and thereupon the piteous grandmother told me that her oe had been beguiled by a false manufacturing gentleman, and was thereby constrained to come back in a state of ignominy that was heartbreaking.’

  ‘Good Maudelin, in what can I help you in your calamity?’

  ‘In nothing, nothing,’ said she; ‘but we are come to make a confession in time.’

  ‘What confession? quo’ I’ – that said the minister.

  ‘Oh, sir,’ said she, ‘it’s dreadful, but your counselling may rescue us from a great guilt. I have just been with Widow Blithe, the midwife, to bespeak her helping hand; oh, sir, speir no questions.’

  ‘But,’ said the minister, ‘this is not a business to be trifled with; what did Mrs Blithe say to you?’

  ‘That Mrs Blithe,’ replied Maudelin, ‘is a hidden woman; she made sport of my poor Lizzy’s misfortune, and said that the best I could do was to let her nip the craig of the bairn in the hour of its birth.’

  ‘Now, Mrs Blithe,’ continued the Minister, ‘is it possible that you could suggest such a crime?’

  I was speechless; blue sterns danced before my sight, my knees trembled, and the steadfast earth grew as it were coggly aneath my chair; at last I replied,

  ‘That old woman, sir, is of a nature, as she is of age enough, to be a witch – she’s no canny! to even me to murder! Sir, I commit myself into your hands and judgment.’

  ‘Indeed, I thought,’ said the minister, ‘that you would never speak as Maudelin said you had done; but she told me to examine you myself, for that she was sure, if I was put to the straights of a question, I would tell the truth.’

  ‘And you have heard the truth, sir,’ cried I.

  ‘I believe it,’ said he; ‘but, in addition to all she rehearsed, she told me that, unless you, Mrs Blithe, would do your duty to her injured oe, and free gratis for no fee at all, she would go before a magistrate, and swear you had egged her on to bathe her hands in innocent infant blood.’

  ‘Mr Stipend,’ cried I; ‘the wickedness of the human heart is beyond the computations of man: this dreadful old woman is, I’ll not say what; but oh, sir, what am I to do; for if she makes a perjury to a magistrate my trade is gone, and my dear bairns driven to iniquity and beggary?’

  Then the minister shook his head, and said, ‘It was, to be sure, a great trial, for a worthy woman like me, to be so squeezed in the vice of malice and malignity; but a calm sough in all troubles was true wisdom, and that I ought to comply with the deceitful carlin’s terms.’

  Thus it came to pass, that, after the bastard brat was born, the old wife made a brag of how she had spirited the worthy minister to terrify me. Everybody laughed at her souple trick: but to me it was, for many a day, a heartburning; though, to the laive of the parish, it was a great mea
n, as I have said, of daffin and merriment.

  No doubt, it will be seen, by the foregoing, that, although in a sense I had reason to be thankful that Providence, with the help of the laird’s leddy-mother, had enabled me to make a bit of bread for my family, yet, it was not always without a trouble and an anxiety. Indeed, when I think on what I have come through in my profession, though it be one of the learned, and the world not able to do without it, I have often thought that I could not wish waur to my deadliest enemy than a kittle case of midwifery; for surely it is a very obstetrical business, and far above a woman with common talons to practise. But it would be to make a wearisome tale were I to lengthen my story; and so I mean just to tell of another accident that happened to me last year, and then to make an end, with a word or two of improvement on what shall have been said; afterwards I will give some account of what happened to those that, through my instrumentality, were brought to be a credit to themselves and an ornament to the world. Some, it is very true, were not just of that stamp; for, as the impartial sun shines alike on the wicked and the worthy, I have had to deal with those whose use I never could see, more than that of an apple that falleth from the tree, and perisheth with rottenness.

  The case that I have to conclude with was in some sort mystical; and long it was before I got an interpretation thereof. It happened thus: –

  One morning in the fall of the year and before break of day, when I was lying wakerife in my bed, I heard a knuckling on the pane of the window and got up to inquire the cause. This was by the porter of the Thistle Inns, seeking my help for a leddy at the crying, that had come to their house since midnight and could go no further.