by Unknown
“It was nobly said,” declared Hendry; “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 Miltydes was after,” said T’nowhead.
“Ye’ve taen’t up wrang, Hendry,” Tammas explained. “What Miltiades 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.”
“I see, I see; but what was the monuments of 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 oot ‘at there was humour in that?”
“He do so. He said it was a humorous thing to think o’ a hale army lookin’ on at twa cocks fechtin’. I assure ye I telt ‘im ‘at I saw nae humour in’t. It was ane o’ the most impressive sichts ever seen by man, an’ the Greeks was sae inspired by what Miltiades said ‘at they sweepit the Persians oot o’ their country.”
We all agreed that Tammas’s was the genuine humour.
“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 sometimes taks grip o’ me i’ the kirk itsel, an’ I can hardly keep frae lauchin’.”
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 disown 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 to 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. 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’s 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’s 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 minutes gone, an’ they brocht him back deid, my Joey.”
On the Sabbath day Jess could not 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.
“It’s been a fine 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 McQumpha, never did naething in all his 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 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 something 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.’
“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 of die fowk, but I’ll gie you 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 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.’ It’s 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 beginnin’ 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 ower 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 was his mother, ‘at though Joey never lived 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 seen 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 wen 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’s staff probably had a history before 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 grey. At the risk of being thought fanciful I dare to say that in inanimate objects, as in ourselves, there is honourable and shameful old age, and that to me Jess’s staff was a symbol of the good, the true. It rested against her in the w
indow, and she was so helpless without 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 forenoon in May when he ran out to his death. Joey, however, was associated in Jess’s memory with her staff in less painful ways. When she spoke of him she took the dwarf of a staff in her hands and looked at it softly.
“It’s hard to me,” she would say, “to believe ‘at twa 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 been my savin’ ever since she was fower year auld. Ay, but it was Joey ‘at hung aboot 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 something 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 neighbours saw him so affectionate like, but he was terrible taen 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, or his cruizey lamp, or ony thing. Ah, but he didna mak nae pretence o’ no carin’ for me aince he was inside the hoose. He came crawlin’ 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 ‘ll daur say that to me but yersel, Jess. Na, na, my dawty, you’re the wuman o’ my choice; there’s juist one wuman i’ the warld to me, an’ that’s you, my ain Jess.’ 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 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 ta’en him awa, but I liked to hae ‘im. Ye see, we war long 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 mother gaen to, awa frae uset.’ 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 haud o’ Joey, an’ he ended in gien us a fleg (fright). I was sleepin’ ill at the time, an’ Hendry 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 room an’ shook him up. I was near daft with fear when I saw Leeby wasna there either. Hendry couldna tak it in a’ at aince, but sune he had his trousers on, an’ he made me lie 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 speakin’, an’ in a minute Leeby comes runnin’ in to me, roarin’ an’ greetin’. She was barefeeted, and had juist her nichtgown on, an’ her teeth was chatterin’. 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 carryin’ 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 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 me gaen 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. Hendry dug it up next mornin’.”
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 bidden.”
“Yea, yea,” said Jess, nodding to me significantly. “Ay, weel,” she added, “we’ll be hae’n Tibbie ower here on Saturday to deave’s (weary us) to death aboot it.”
Tibbie, Davit’s wife, was sister to Marget, Pete’s widow, and she generally did visit Jess on Saturday night to talk about Marget, who was fast becoming one of the most fashionable persons in Thrums. Tibbie was hopelessly plebeian. She was none of 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, however, in a frank way.
On Saturday Tibbie made her appearance. 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 grey shawl about her shoulders, and wore a black mutch over her dangling grey curls.
“It’s you, Tibbie,” I heard Jess say, as the door opened.
Tibbie did not knock, not considering herself grand enough for ceremony, and indeed Jess would have resented her knocking. On the other hand, when Leeby visited Tibbie, she knocked as politely as if she were collecting for the precentor’s present. All this showed that we were superior socially to Tibbie.
“Ay, hoo are ye, Jess?” Tibbie said.
“Muckle aboot it,” answered Jess; “juist aff an’ on; ay, an’ hoo hae ye been yersel?”
“Ou,” said Tibbie.
I wish I could write “ou” as Tibbie said it. With her it was usually a sentence in itself. Sometimes it was a mere bark, again it expressed indignation, surprise, rapture; it might be a check upon emotion or a way of leading 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, whom I could not see from ben the house. I had a good glimpse of Tibbie, however, through the open doorways. She had the armchair on the south side, as she would have said, of the fireplace.
“He’s awa,” assented Tibbie, primly.
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, distant 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 visitor 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 evidently put a question at times, but so politely (for she had on her best wrapper) that I did not catch a word.
“Though I should be struck deid this nicht,” Tibbie whispered, and the sibilants hissed between her few remaining 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 Marget passed by me, me ‘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 coffined him; na, an’ what’s mair, I wouldna gie Marget the satisfaction o’ hearin’ me say it. No, Jess, I tell ye, I dinna pertend to be on an equalty wi’ Marget, 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.…