The Penguin Book of the British Short Story, Volume 1

by Philip Hensher

  I made no more ado, but dressed myself off-hand, and went to the Inns; where, to be sure, there was a leddy, for any thing that I then knew to the contrary, in great difficulty. Who she was, and where she had come from, I heard not; nor did I speir; nor did I see her face; for over her whole head she had a muslin apron so thrown and tied, that her face was concealed; and no persuasion could get her to remove that veil. It was therefore plain to me that she wished herself, even in my hands, not to be known; but she did not seem to jalouse that the very obstinacy about the veil would be a cause to make me think that she was afraid I would know her. I was not, however, overly-curious; for, among the other good advices that I got when I was about to take up the trade, from the leddy of Rigs, my patron, I was enjoined never to be inquisitive anent family secrets; which I have, with a very scrupulous care, always adhered to; and thus it happened, that, although the leddy made herself so strange as to make me suspicious that all was not right, I said nothing but I opened both my eyes and my ears.

  She had with her an elderly woman; and, before she came to the worst, I could gather from their discourse, that the lady’s husband was expected every day from some foreign land. By and by, what with putting one thing together with another, and eiking out with the help of my own imagination, I was fain to guess that she would not be ill pleased to be quit of her burden before the Major came home.

  Nothing beyond this patch-work of hints then occurred. She had an easy time of it; and, before the sun was up, she was the mother of a bonny bairn. But what surprised me was, that, in less than an hour after the birth, she was so wonderful hale and hearty, that she spoke of travelling another stage in the course of the day, and of leaving Mrs Smith, that was with her, behind to take care of the babby; indeed, this was settled; and, before noon, at twelve o’ clock, she was ready to step into the post-chaise that she had ordered to take herself forward – but mark the upshot.

  When she was dressed and ready for the road – really she was a stout woman – another chaise drew up at the Inn’s door, and, on looking from the window to see who was in it, she gave a shriek and staggered back to a sofa, upon which she fell like one that had been dumbfoundered.

  In the chaise I saw only an elderly weather-beaten gentleman, who, as soon as the horses were changed, pursued his journey. The moment he was off, this mysterious mother called the lady-nurse with the babby, and they spoke for a time in whispers. Then her chaise was brought out and in she stepped, causing me to go with her for a stage. I did so and she very liberally gave me a five pound note of the Royal Bank and made me, without allowing me to alight, return back with the retour-chaise; for the which, on my account, she settled with the driver. But there the story did not rest, as I shall have occasion to rehearse by and by.

  Part II – Anent Bairns

  Although I have not in the foregoing head of my subject mentioned every extraordinary han’ling that came to me, yet I have noted the most remarkable; and made it plain to my readers by that swatch of my professional work, that it is not an easy thing to be a midwife with repute, without the inheritance from nature of good common sense and discretion, over and above skill and experience. I shall now dedicate this second head, to a make-mention of such things as I have heard and known anent the bairns, that in their entrance into this world, came by the grace of God through my hands.

  And here, in the first place, and at the very outset, it behoves me to make an observe, that neither omen nor symptom occurs at a birth, by which any reasonable person or gossip present can foretell what the native, as the unchristened baby is then called, may be ordained to come through in the course of the future. No doubt this generality, like every rule, has an exception; but I am no disposed to think the exceptions often kent-speckle; for although I have heard many a well-doing sagacious carlin notice the remarkables she had seen at some births, I am yet bound to say that my experience has never taught me to discern in what way a come-to-pass in the life of the man was begotten of the uncos at the birth of the child.

  But while I say this, let me no be misunderstood as throwing any doubt on the fact, that births sometimes are, and have been, in all ages, attended with signs and wonders manifest. I am only stating the truth as it has fallen out in the course of my own experience; for I never misdoubt that it’s in the power of Providence to work miracles and cause marvels, when a child is ordained with a superfluity of head-rope. I only maintain, that it is not a constancy in nature to be regular in that way, and that many prodigies happen at the times of births, of which it would not be a facile thing for a very wise prophet to expound the use. Indeed, my observes would go to the clean contrary; for I have noted that, for the most part, the births which have happened in dread and strange circumstances, were not a hair’s-breadth better, than those of the commonest clamjamphry. Indeed, I had a very notable instance of this kind in the very first year of my setting up for myself, and that was when James Cuiffy’s wife lay in of her eldest born.

  James, as all the parish well knew, was not a man to lead the children of Israel through the Red Sea, nor she a Deborah to sing of butter in a lordly dish; but they were decent folk; and when the fulness of her time was come, it behoved her to be put to bed, and my helping hand to be called for. Accordingly I went.

  It was the gloaming when James came for me; and as we walked o’er the craft together, the summer lightning ayont the hills began to skimmer in a woolly cloud: but we thought little o’t, for the day had been very warm, and that flabbing of the fire was but a natural outcoming of the same cause.

  We had not, however, been under the shelter of the roof many minutes, when we heard a-far off, like the ruff of a drum or the hurl of a cart of stones tumbled on the causey, a clap of thunder, and then we heard another and another, just like a sea-fight of Royal Georges in the skies, till the din grew so desperate, that the crying woman could no more be heard than if she had been a stone image of agony.

  I’ll no say that I was not in a terrification. James Cuiffy took to his Bible, but the poor wife needed all my help. At last the bairn was born; and just as it came into the world, the thunder rampaged, as if the Prince of the Powers of the air had gaen by himself; and in the same minute, a thunder-bolt fell doun the lum, scattered the fire about the house, whiskit out of the window, clove like a wedge the apple-tree at the house-end, and slew nine sucking pigs and the mother grumphy, as if they had been no better than the host of Sennacherib; which every body must allow was most awful: but for all that, nothing afterwards came to pass; and the bairn that was born, instead of turning out a necromancer or a geni, as we had so much reason to expect, was, from the breast, as silly as a windlestraw. Was not this a plain proof that they are but of a weak credulity who have faith in freats of that kind?

  I met, likewise, not in the next year, but in the year after, nearer to this time, another delusion of the same uncertainty. Mrs Gallon, the exciseman’s wife, was overtaken with her pains, of all places in the world, in the kirk, on a Sabbath afternoon. They came on her suddenly, and she gave a skirle that took the breath with terror from the minister, as he was enlarging with great bir on the ninth clause of the seventh head of his discourse. Every body stood up. The whole congregation rose upon the seats, and in every face was pale consternation. At last the minister said, that on account of the visible working of Providence in the midst of us, yea in the very kirk itself, the congregation should skail: whereupon skail they did; so that in a short time I had completed my work, in which I was assisted by some decent ladies staying to lend me their Christian assistance; which they did, by standing in a circle round the table seat where the ploy was going on, with their backs to the crying mother, holding out their gowns in a minaway fashion, as the maids of honour are said to do, when the queen is bringing forth a prince in public.

  The bairn being born, it was not taken out of the kirk till the minister himself was brought back, and baptized it with a scriptural name; for it was every body’s opinion that surely in time it would be a brave minis
ter, and become a great and shining light in the Lord’s vineyard to us all. But it is often the will and pleasure of Providence to hamper in the fulfilment the carnal wishes of corrupt human nature. Matthew Gallon had not in after life the seed of a godly element in his whole carcase; quite the contrary, for he turned out the most rank ringing enemy that was ever in our country-side; and when he came to years of discretion, which in a sense he never did, he fled the country as a soldier, and for some splore with the Session, though he was born in the kirk; – another plain fact that shows how little reason there is in some cases to believe that births and prognostifications have no natural connexion. Not that I would condumaciously maintain that there is no meaning in signs sometimes, and may be I have had a demonstration; but it was a sober advice that the auld leddy of Rigs gave me, when she put me in a way of business, to be guarded in the use of my worldly wisdom, and never to allow my tongue to describe what my eyes saw or my ears heard at an occasion, except I was well convinced it would pleasure the family.

  ‘No conscientious midwife,’ said she, ‘will ever make causey-talk of what happens at a birth, if it’s of a nature to work dule by repetition on the fortunes of the bairn’; and this certainly was most orthodox, for I have never forgotten her counsel.

  I have, however, an affair in my mind at this time; and as I shall mention no names, there can be no harm done in speaking of it here; for it is a thing that would perplex a philosopher or a mathematical man, and stagger the self-conceit of an unbeliever.

  There was a young Miss that had occasion to come over the moor by herself one day, and in doing so she met with a hurt; what that hurt was, no body ever heard; but it could not be doubted that it was something most extraordinar; for, when she got home, she took to her bed and was very unwell for several days, and her een were blear’t with greeting. At last, on the Sabbath-day following, her mother foregathert with me in coming from the kirk; and the day being showery, she proposed to rest in my house as she passed the door, till a shower that she saw coming would blow over. In doing this, and we being by ourselves, I speired in a civil manner for her daughter; and from less to more she told me something that I shall not rehearse, and, with the tear in her eye, she entreated my advice; but I could give her none, for I thought her daughter had been donsie; so no more was said anent it; but the poor lassie from that day fell as it were into a dwining, and never went out; insomuch that before six months were come and gone, she was laid up in her bed, and there was a wally-wallying on her account throughout the parish, none doubting that she was in a sore way, if not past hope.

  In this state was her sad condition, when they had an occasion for a gradawa at my Lord’s; and as he changed horses at the Cross Keys when he passed through our town, I said to several of the neighbours, to advise the mother that this was a fine opportunity she ought not to neglect, but should consult him anent her dochter. Accordingly, on the doctor returning from the castle, she called him in; and when he had consulted the ailing lassie as to her complaint, every body rejoiced to hear that he made light of it, and said that she would be as well as ever in a month or two; for that all she had to complain of was but a weakness common to womankind, and that a change of air was the best thing that could be done for her.

  Maybe I had given an advice to the same effect quietly before, and therefore was none displeased to hear, when it came to pass, that shortly after, the mother and Miss were off one morning, for the benefit of the air of Glasgow, in a retour chaise, by break of day, before anybody was up. To be sure some of the neighbours thought it an odd thing that they should have thought of going to that town for a beneficial air; but as the report soon after came out to the town that the sick lassie was growing brawly, the wonder soon blew over, for it was known that the air of a close town is very good in some cases of the asthma.

  By and by, it might be six weeks or two months after, aiblins more, when the mother and the daughter came back, the latter as slimb as a popular tree, and blooming like a rose. Such a recovery after such an illness was little short of a miracle, for the day of their return was just ten months from the day and date of her hurt.

  It is needless for me to say what were my secret thoughts on this occasion, especially when I heard the skill of the gradawa extolled, and far less how content I was when, in the year following, the old lady went herself on a jaunt into the East Country to see a sick cousin, a widow woman with only a bairn, and brought the bairn away with her on the death of the parent. It was most charitable of her so to do, and nothing could exceed the love and ecstasy with which Miss received it from the arms of her mother. Had it been her ain bairn she could not have dandalized it more!

  Soon after this the young lady fell in with a soldier officer, that was sent to recruit in the borough, and married him on a short acquaintance, and went away with him a regimenting to Ireland; but ‘my cousin’s wee fatherless and motherless orphan,’ as the old pawkie carlin used to call the bairn, stayed with her, and grew in time to be a ranting birkie; and in the end, my lord hearing of his spirit, sent for him one day to the castle, and in the end bought for him a commission, in the most generous manner, such as well befitted a rich young lord to do; and afterwards, in the army, his promotion was as rapid as if he had more than merit to help him.

  Now, is not this a thing to cause a marvelling; for I, that maybe had it in my power to have given an explanation, was never called on so to do; for everything came to pass about it in such an ordained-like way, that really I was sometimes at a loss what to think, and said to myself surely I have dreamt a dream; for, although it could not be said to have been a case of prognostications, it was undoubtedly one of a most kittle sort in many particulars. Remembering, however, the prudent admonition I had received from the auld leddy of Rigs, I shall say no more at present, but keep a calm sough.

  It is no doubt the even-down fact that I had no hand in bringing ‘my cousin’s wee fatherless and motherless orphan’ into the world, but maybe I might have had, if all the outs and ins of the story were told. As that, however, is not fitting, I have just said enough to let the courteous reader see, though it be as in a glass darkly, that my profession is no without the need of common sense in its handlings, and that I have not earned a long character for prudence in the line without ettle, nor been without jobs that cannot be spoken of, but, like this, in a far-off manner.

  But it behoves me, before I go farther, to request the reader to turn back to where I have made mention of the poor deserted bairn, Willy Facings; how he was born in an unprepared hurry, and how his mother departed this life, while his ne’er-do-weel father went away like a knotless thread. I do not know how it happened, but come to pass it did, that I took a kindness for the forsaken creature, insomuch that, if his luck had been no better with Miss Peggy Needle, it was my intent to have brought him up with my own weans; for he was a winsome thing from the hour of his birth, and made every day a warmer nest for his image in my heart. His cordial temper was a mean devised by Providence as a compensation to him for the need that was in its own courses, that he would never enjoy a parent’s love.

  When Miss Peggy had skailed the byke of her cats, and taken Billy, as he came to be called, home to her house, there was a wonderment both in the borough-town and our clachan how it was possible for her, an inexperienced old maid, to manage the bairn; for by this time he was weaned, and was as rampler a creature as could well be, and she was a most prejinct and mim lady. But, notwithstanding her natural mimness and prejinkity, she was just out of the body with love and tenderness towards him, and kept him all day at her foot, playing in the inside of a stool whamled up-side down.

  It was the sagacious opinion of every one, and particularly both of the doctor and Mr Stipend, the minister, that the bairn would soon tire out the patience of Miss Peggy; but we are all short-sighted mortals, for instead of tiring her, she every day grew fonder and fonder of him, and hired a lassie to look after him, as soon as he could tottle. Nay, she bought a green parrot for him from a sail
or, when he was able to run about; and no mother could be so taken up with her own get as kind-hearted Miss Peggy was with him, her darling Dagon; for although the parrot was a most outstrapolous beast, and skrighed at times with louder desperation than a pea-hen in a passion, she yet so loved it on his account, that one day when it bit her lip to the bleeding, she only put it in its cage, and said, as she wiped her mouth, that it was ‘a sorrow.’

  By and by Miss Peggy put Billy to the school; but, by that time, the condumacious laddie had got the upper hand of her, and would not learn his lesson, unless she would give him an apple or sweeties; and yet, for all that, she was out of the body about him, in so much that the minister was obligated to remonstrate with her on such indulgence; telling her she would be the ruin of the boy, fine creature as he was, if she did not bridle him, and intended to leave him a legacy.

  In short, Miss Peggy and her pet were just a world’s wonder, when, at last, Captain Facings, seven years after Billy’s birth, being sent by the king to Glasgow, came out, one Sunday to our town, and sent for me to learn what had become of his bairn. Though I recollected him at the first sight, yet, for a matter of policy, I thought it convenient to pretend doubtful of my memory, till, I trow, I had made him sensible of his sin in deserting his poor baby. At long and length I made him to know the blessing that had been conferred by the fancy of Miss Peggy, on the deserted child, and took him myself to her house. But, judge of my consternation, and his likewise, when, on introducing him to her as the father of Billy, whom I well recollected, she grew very huffy at me, and utterly denied that Billy was any such boy as I had described, and foundled over him, and was really in a comical distress, till, from less to more, she grew, at last, as obstinate as a graven image, and was not sparing in the words she made use of to get us out of her habitation.