Complete Works of J. M. Barrie

by Unknown

  “Maybe, but I wasna thinking about you. Na, it was the blacks as was on my mind, and away I goes.”

  “Ye ran.”

  “Yes, I ran straight to the Tenements to Davit Whamand’s house. Lads, I said the pot was very near the boil when I marched down the Roods, but my humour was getting cold again. Ay, Chirsty Todd had suddenly lifted the pot off the fire.”

  CHAPTER VI

  IN WHICH A BIRTH IS RECORDED

  “Davit’s collie barked at me,” Haggart continued, “when it heard me lifting the sneck of the door, but I cowed it with a stern look, and stepped inside. The wife was away cracking about me to Lizzie Linn, but there was Davit himsel’ with a bantam cock on his knee, which was ailing, and he was forcing a little butter into its nib. He let the beast fall when he saw me, and I was angered to notice as he had been occupied with a bantam when he should have been discussing me with consternation.”

  “It was the greater surprise to him when in ye marched.”

  “Ay, but my desire to be thocht a ghost had gone, and I says at once, ‘Dinna stand trembling there, Davit Whamand,’ I says, ‘for I’m in the flesh, and so you’ll please hand ower my black coat!’ He hardly believed I was human at first, but at the mention of the coat he grows stiff and hard, and says he, ‘What black coat?’

  “‘Deception will not avail ye, Davit Whamand,’ says I, ‘for Chirsty has confessed all.’

  “‘The coat’s mine,’ says Davit, glowering.

  “‘I want that coat direct,’ I says.

  “‘Think shame o’ yoursel’,’ says he, ‘and you a corpse this half year.’

  “The crittur tried to speak like a minister, but I waved away his argument with my hand.

  “‘Back to the cemetery, ye shameless corp,’ says he, ‘and I ‘ll mention this to nobody; but if ye didna gang peaceably we’ll call out the constables.’

  “‘Dinna haver, Davit Whamand,’ I retorts, ‘for ye ken fine I’m in the flesh, and if ye dinna produce my coat immediately I’ll take the law of ye.’

  “‘Will ye?’ he sneers; ‘and what micht ye call yoursel’?’ “‘I’ll call mysel’ by my own name, namely, Tammas Haggart,’ I thunders.

  “‘Yea, yea,’ says he; ‘I’m thinking a corp hands on his name to his auldest son, and Tammas Haggart being dead without a son the name becomes extinct.’

  “Lads, that did stagger me a minute, but then I minds I’m living, and I cries, ‘Ye sly crittur, I’m no dead.’

  “‘Are ye not?’ says he; ‘I think ye are.’

  “‘Do I look dead?’ I argues.

  “‘Look counts for nothing before a bailie,’ says he, ‘and if ye annoy me I’ll bring witnesses to prove you’re dead. Yes, I’ll produce the widow in her crapes, and them as coffined ye.’

  “‘Ày,’ I cries, ‘but I’ll produce mysel’.’

  “‘The waur for you,’says he, ‘for if ye try to overthrow the law we ‘ll bury ye again, though it should be at the public expense.’

  “Lads, that made me uneasy, and all I could think to do was just to fling out my foot at the bantam.

  “‘Ye daur look me in the face, Davit Whamand,’ I says, ‘and pretend as I’m no mysel’?’

  “‘I daur do so,’ he says; ‘and not only are ye no yersel’, but I would never have recognised ye for such.’

  “‘So, so,’ I remarks; ‘and ye refuse to deliver up my coat?’

  “‘Yes,’ he says, ‘and what’s more I never had your coat,’ “Lads, that was his cautiousness in case twa lines of defence was needed before the bailie; but I said no more to him, for now the house began to fill with folk wanting to make sure of me, and I was keen to convince them I was in the flesh before Davit prejudiced them. Ay, Bobbie, you was one of them as convoyed me to Hender Haggart’s.”

  ‘‘I was, Tammas, and when ye shut the door on me a mask of folk came round me to hear how ye had broke out.”

  “I daursay that, but their curiosity didna interest me now. Ye mind when we got to Hender’s house it was black and dark, him pretending to be away to his bed? Ay, but the smell of roasting potatoes belied that. As we ken now, Hender had been warned that I was at Davit’s demanding back the coat, and he suspected I would come nest to him for the waistcoat and the hat.”

  “Ay, but he had to let ye in.”

  “Ou, I would have broken in the door rather than have been beat, and in the tail of the day Hender takes the snib off the door.”

  “He pretended he thocht ye a ghost too, did he no?”

  “No, no, that’s a made up story. Hender and his wife had agreed to pretend that, but when Hender came to the door he became stupid-like, and when I says ‘Ay, Hender,’ he says ‘Ay, Tammas.’ I’ve heard his wife raged at him about it after.

  “‘Nanny,’ I says to the wife, ‘it’s me back again, and ye’ll oblige by handing ower my waistcoat and my hat.’

  “I’ve forgotten to tell ye that when I walked in, Nanny was standing on a stool with a poker in her hand, the which she was using to shove something on the top of the press out of sicht. She jumped down hurriedly, but looking bold, and says she, ‘These mice is very troublesome.’

  “Weel, I had a presentiment, and I says, ‘Give me the poker, Nanny, and I’ll get at the mice!’ Says she, ‘Na, na’; and she lifts away the stool.

  “All this time Hender had been looking very melancholy, but despite that, he was glad to see me back, and he says in a sentimental way, ‘You’re a stranger, Tammas,’ says he.

  “‘I am, Hender,’ says I, ‘and I want my waistcoat, also my hat.’

  ‘‘Hender gave a confused look to the wife, and says she, ‘The waistcoat has been sold for rags, and I gave the hat to tinklers.’

  “‘Hender Haggart,’ says I, ‘is this so?’ —

  “Hender a sort of winked, meaning that we could talk the thing ower when Nanny wasna there, but I couldna wait. —

  “‘I think, Nanny,’ says I, pointedly, ‘as I’ll take a look at these mice of yours.’

  “‘Ye’ll do no sich things,’ says she.

  “‘I’m thinking,’ says I, ‘as I’ll find a black waistcoat on the top of that press, and likewise a Sabbath hat.’

  “Hender couldna help giving me an admiring look for my quickness, but Nanny put her back to the press, and says she, ‘Hender, am I to be insulted before your face?’

  “Hender was perplexed, but he says to me, ‘Ye hear what Nanny says, Tammas?’

  ‘‘‘Ay, ‘ I says, ‘I hear her.’

  “‘He hears ye, Nanny,’ says Hender.

  “‘But I want my lawful possessions,’ I cries.

  ‘‘Hender hesitated again, but Nanny repeats, ‘Hender, am I to be insulted before your face!’

  “‘Dinna insult her before my face,’ Hender whispers to me.

  “‘I offer no insult,’ I says, loud out, ‘but I’ve come for my waistcoat and my hat, and I dinna budge till I get them.’ “‘Ye’ve a weary time before ye, then,’ says Nanny.

  “‘I wonder ye wouldna be ashamed to keep a man frae his belongings,’ I said.

  “‘Tell him they’re yours, Hender,’ she cries.

  “‘Ye see, Tammas,’ says Hender, ‘she says they’re mine.’ “‘Ay,’ I says, ‘but ye canna pretend they’re yours yoursel’, Hender?’

  “‘Most certainly ye can, Hender,’ says Nanny.

  “‘Ye see that, Tammas,’ says Hender, triumphant.

  “‘And how do ye make out as they are yours?’ I asks him.

  “‘Tell him,’ cries Nanny, ‘as ye got them for helping in his burial.’

  “‘Tammas,’ says Hender, ‘that’s how I got them.’

  “‘Maybe,’ I says, ‘but did I give ye them?’

  “‘Say he was a corp,’ Nanny cries.

  “‘Meaning no disrespect, Tammas,’ says Hender, ‘ye was a corp.’

  “‘How could I have been a corp,’ I argues, ‘when here I am speaking to ye?’

  “Hender turned to Nanny for
the answer to this, but she showed him her back, so he just said in a weak way, ‘We’ll leave the minister to settle that.’

  “‘Hender, ye gowk,’ I says, ‘ye ken I’m living; and if I’m living I’m no dead.’

  “Lads, I regretted I hadna put it plain like that to Davit Whamand. However, Hender hadna the clearheadedness necessary to follow out sich reasoning, and he replies, “‘No doubt,’ he says, ‘ye are living in a sense, but no in another sense.’

  “‘I wasna the corp,’ I cried.

  “‘Weel, weel, Tammas,’ says he, in a fell dignified voice, ‘we needna quarrel on a matter of opinion.’

  “I was just beginning to say as it was more likely to be the waistcoat we would fall out about, when in walks Chirsty in the most flurried way.

  “‘Tammas Haggart,’ she pants, ‘come hame this instant; the minister’s waiting for ye.’

  “Which minister?” I asks.

  “‘None other,’ she says, looking proudly at Nancy, ‘than the Auld Licht minister.’

  “Lads, I shook in my boots at that, and I says, ‘I winna come till I’ve got my hat and my waistcoat.’

  “‘What,’ screams Chirsty, ‘ye daur to keep the minister waiting!’ and she shoved me clean out of the house.” What the minister said to Haggart is not known, for Tammas never divulged the conversation. Those who remained on the watch said that the minister looked very stern when walking back to the manse, and that Chirsty found her husband tractable for the rest of the evening. The most we ever got out of Tammas on the subject was that though he had met many terrifying folk in his wanderings, they were a herd of sheep compared to the minister. He had sometimes to be enticed out of the reverie into which thought of the minister plunged him.

  “So it was next day ye dandered up to the grave?” we would say craftily, though well aware that he did not leave the house till Monday.

  “Na, na, not on the Sabbath day. When I wakened in the morning I admit I was terribly anxious to see the grave, as was natural, but thocht of the minister cowed me. I would have ventured as far as the grave if I had been able to persuade mysel’ I wasna going for pleasure, but pleasure it was, lads. Ay, there was no denying that.’’

  “Chirsty was at the kirk?”

  “She was so, and in her widow’s crapes. I watched her frae the window. Ay, it’s no everybody as has watched his own widow.”

  “Na, and it had been an impressive spectacle. How would ye say she looked, Tammas?”

  “She looked proud, Robbie.”

  ‘‘She would; but what would ye say she was proud of?”

  “Ah, Robbie, there you beat me. But I can tell ye what she was proud of on the Monday.”

  “What?”

  “Before porridge-time no less than seven women, namely, three frae Tillyloss, twa frae the Tenements, and twa frae the Roods, chaps at the door and invites her to a dish of tea. That’s what she was proud of, and I would like to hear of ony other woman in this town, single or married or a widow, as has had seven invitations to her tea in one day.”

  “The thing’s unparalleled; but of course it was to hear about you that they speired her?”

  “Oh, of course, and also to get out of her what the minister said to me. Ay, but can ony of ye tell me what’s the memorablist thing about these invitations?”

  “I dinna say I can, but it’s something about the grave.”

  “It’s this, Snecky, that before Chirsty had made up her mind whether to risk seven teas in one day, I had become a humorist for life.”

  “Man, man, oh, losh!”

  “Ay, and it’s perfectly appalling to consider as she was so excited about her invitations that when I came down frae the cemetery she never looked me in the face, and I had to say to her, ‘Chirsty Todd, do ye no see as something has come ower me?’ At that she says, ‘I notice you’re making queer faces, but I dinna ken what they mean.’

  ‘They mean, Chirsty Todd,’ says I, ‘as I am now a humorist,’ to which she replies, ‘Pick up that dish-clout.’”

  “Keeps us all! But oh, man, a woman’s mind doesna easily rise to the sublime.”

  “It doesna, Pete, and I’ll tell ye the reason; it’s because of women, that is to say, richtminded women, all having sich an adoration for ministers.”

  “I dinna contradict ye, Tammas, but surely that’s a fearsome statement. Is ministers not nearer the sublime than other folk?”

  “They are, they are, and that’s just it. Ministers, ye may say, is always half road up to the sublime. Weel, what’s the result? Women raises their e’en to gaze upon the sublime, when they catch sicht of the minister, and canna look ony higher.”

  “Sal, Tammas, you’ve solved it! But I warrant ye couldna have said that till ye became a humorist?”

  “No more than you could have said it yersel’, Robbie.”

  “Na, I dinna pretend I could have said it, and even though I was to gang hame now and say it in your very words, it wouldna have the same show as when you say it.”

  “It would not, for ye would just blurt it out, but them as watches me saying a humorous thing notices the mental struggle before the words comes up. Ay, the mental struggle’s like the servant in grand houses as puts his head in at the door and cries, ‘Leddies and gentlemen, take your seats, for the dinner is all but ready.’”

  Early on Monday morning Haggart, the non-humorist, woke for the last time. The day was moderately fine, but gave no indication that anything remarkable was about to happen. Lookaboutyou, it is true, says that he noticed a queer stillness in the air, and Snecky Hobart spoke of an unusually restless night. It is believed by some that the cocks of Tilly loss did not crow that morning. But none of these phenomena were noticed until it became natural to search the memory for them, and Haggart himself always said that it was a common day. The fact, I suppose, is that an uncommon day was not needed, for here was Haggart and there was the cemetery. Nature never wastes her materials.

  Haggart was elated no doubt, but so would any man have been in the circumstances. For the last time Haggart the non-humorist put off cleaning his boots for another day. For the last time he combed his hair without studying the effect in the piece of glass that was glued to the wall. Never again would the Haggart who briskly descended his outside stair, forgetting to shut the door, enter that room in which Chirsty was already baking bannocks. It was a new Haggart who would return presently, Haggart of Haggart ‘s Roady, Haggart of Thrums, in short, Haggart the humorist.

  The last person to speak to Haggart the non-humorist was James Spens; the last to see him was Sanders Landels. Jamie met him at the foot of Tillyloss, and Sanders passed him on the burying-ground brae. Both were ordinary persons, and they never distinguished themselves again.

  It was not his grave that made Haggart a humorist, but the gravestone. Two years earlier he had erected a tombstone to the memory of his relatives, but it had never struck him that he would some day be able to read his own fate on it. The grave is to the right of the entrance to the cemetery, almost exactly under the favourite seat known as the Bower, and being at the bend of the path it comes suddenly into view. Haggart walked eagerly along the path, an ordinary man upon the whole; then all at once...... He looked — He looked again. This is what he read;

  THIS STONE WAS ERECTED BY THOMAS HAGGART TO THE MEMORY OF PETER HAGGART, FATHER, OF THE SAID THOMAS, WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE, JAN. 7, 1825.

  ALSO HERE LIES JEAN LINN, OR HAGGART, MOTHER OF THE SAID THOMAS, DIED 1828.

  ALSO JEAN HAGGART, SISTER OF THE SAID THOMAS, ‘ DIED 1829.

  ALSO ANDREW HAGGART, BROTHER OF THE SAID THOMAS, DIED 1831.

  ALSO THE SAID THOMAS HIMSELF, DIED 1834.

  Haggart sat down on the grave. In Thrums common folk were doing common things — weaving, feeding the hens, supping porridge, carting peats.

  Haggart sat on the grave. In Thrums they were thinking of their webs, of their dinner, of well-scrubbed floors, of their love affairs.

  But Haggart sat on the grave, and a p
ot began to boil. He has told us what happened. Down in his inside something was roaring, and every moment the noise increased. He breathed with difficulty. He was as a barrel swelling but held in by hoops of iron. He rose to his feet, for his tongue was hot and there was a hissing in his throat, and the iron hoops pressed more and more tightly. Suddenly the hissing ceased, and he stood as still as salt. The roaring far down died away. All at once he was tilted to the side, the hoops burst, and he began to laugh. The pot was boiling. Haggart was a humorist.

  As soon as he realized what had happened Haggart returned to Tillyloss. The first to see him was Tibbie Robbie, the first to speak to him was William Lamb, the first to notice the change was Snecky Hobart.

  I only undertook to tell how Haggart became a humorist, and here therefore my story ends. I have shown how a lamp was lit in Thrums, but not how it burned. Perhaps if I followed Haggart to his end, as I should like to do, to the time when the lamp flickered and a room in the Tenements grew dark, some who have smiled at an old man’s tale would leave a tear behind them to a weaver’s memory.

  “Na,” Haggart often said, “we winna touch the gravestone. It’ll come in handy some day.”

  His humour, appetising from the first, ripened with the years. For a time this was his comment on the tombstone:—”Lads, lads, what a do we’re preparing for posterity.” Later in his life he said, “It’s almost cruel to cheat future generations in this way.” His hair was white before he said, “I dinna ken but what I should do the honest thing, and have the date rubbed out.”

  And when there was a squeal in his voice, he could add, “No that it much matters.”

  THE END

  FAREWELL MISS JULIE LOGAN

  A WINTRY TALE

  One of Barrie’s last works to be published, this gothic 1932 novella is written as a series of diary entries. Farewell Miss Julie is a haunting tale, drawing upon the folkloric and ballad traditions passed on to Barrie by his mother. The story involves a young minister’s enchantment under the spell of the ghostly Julie Logan, thought to be the spirit of a Jacobite heroine that sheltered the Young Pretender. The novella maintains a powerful ambivalence, common to Scottish writing, between the spectral evocation of the haunted landscape and the powerful rendering of a fractured psyche torn by repressed desire and isolation. Although the novella can be a difficult novella to read, due to the frequent use of archaic dialect words, it epitomises the best of Barrie’s work in which the condition of exile and the predicament of human isolation serve as the basis of the author’s considerable psychological perception.