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This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_.
* * * * *
UNIFORM EDITION, Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
DOOM CASTLE. A ROMANCE.
"He may now be ranked with absolute confidence among the small
company of novelists whose work really counts as
literature."--_Pall Mall Gazette_.
"Inspires reader and reviewer with deep gratitude and
admiration."--_Spectator_.
JOHN SPLENDID. THE TALE OF A POOR GENTLEMAN AND THE LITTLE WARS OF
LORNE.
"A masterly and most interesting novel."--_Times_.
"An achievement of rare merit and distinction."--_Pall Mall
Gazette_.
THE LOST PIBROCH, AND OTHER SHEILING STORIES.
Mr ANDREW LANG says: "In 'The Lost Pibroch' we meet genius as obvious
and undeniable as that of Mr Kipling. Mr Munro's powers are directed
to old Highland life, and he does what genius alone can do--he makes
it alive again, and makes our imagination share its life--his
knowledge being copious, original, at first hand."
CHILDREN OF TEMPEST.
"More than a good story. It is a downright good book, realistic,
powerful, and effective, absolutely perfect in its picturing of
the simple, sturdy seafolk of Uist and the Outer Isles of the
West."--_Daily Telegraph_.
SHOES OF FORTUNE.
"Readable from cover to cover."--_Evening Standard_.
GILIAN THE DREAMER.
"We earnestly hope Mr Munro will give us more of such
things."--_Liverpool Courier_.
* * * * *
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH AND LONDON.
_The Daft Days_
* * * * *
BY
NEIL MUNRO
AUTHOR OF
'JOHN SPLENDID,' 'THE LOST PIBROCH,' ETC., ETC.
* * * * *
_SHILLING EDITION_
* * * * *
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MCMIX
* * * * *
_All Rights reserved_
* * * * *
CHAPTER I.
THE town's bell rang through the dark of the winter morning with queer
little jolts and pauses, as if Wanton Wully Oliver, the ringer, had been
jovial the night before. A blithe New-Year-time bell; a droll, daft,
scatter-brained bell; it gave no horrid alarums, no solemn reminders that
commonly toll from steeples and make good-fellows melancholy to think
upon things undone, the brevity of days and years, the parting of good
company, but a cheery ditty--"boom, boom, ding-a-dong boom, boom ding,
hic, ding-dong," infecting whoever heard it with a kind of foolish
gaiety. The burgh town turned on its pillows, drew up its feet from the
bed-bottles, last night hot, now turned to chilly stone, rubbed its eyes,
and knew by that bell it was the daftest of the daft days come. It cast
a merry spell on the community; it tickled them even in their cosy beds.
"Wanton Wully's on the ran-dan!" said the folk, and rose quickly, and ran
to pull aside screens and blinds to look out in the dark on window-ledges
cushioned deep in snow. The children hugged themselves under the
blankets, and told each other in whispers it was not a porridge morning,
no, nor Sunday, but a breakfast of shortbread, ham and eggs; and behold!
a beautiful loud drum, careless as 'twere a reveille of hot wild youths,
began to beat in a distant lane. Behind the house of Dyce the lawyer, a
cock that must have been young and hearty crew like to burst; and at the
stables of the post-office the man who housed his horses after bringing
the morning mail through night and storm from a distant railway station
sang a song,--
"A damsel possessed of great beauty
Stood near by her own father's gate:
The gallant hussars were on duty;
To view them this maiden did wait.
Their horses were capering and prancing,
Their accoutrements shone like a star;
From the plains they were quickly advancing,--
She espied her own gallant hussar."
"Mercy on us! six o'clock!" cried Miss Dyce, with a startled jump from
her dreams to the floor of her bedroom. "Six o'clock on the New Year's
morning, and I'll warrant that randy Kate is sound asleep yet," she said,
and quickly clad herself and went to the head of the stair and cried,
"Kate, Kate! are ye up yet, Kate? Are ye hearing me, Kate MacNeill?"
From the cavern dark of the lower storey there came back no answer.
She stood with a curious twirly wooden candlestick in her hand in the
midst of a house that was dead dumb and desperate dark, and smelled
deliciously of things to eat. Even herself, who had been at the making
of most of them the day before, and had, by God's grace, still much of a
child's appetite, could not but sniff with a childish satisfaction at
this air of a celestial grocery--of plum-puddings and currant-buns,
apples and oranges, cordials and spices, toffee and the angelic treacly
sweet we call Black Man,--her face lit rosily by the candle lowe, a woman
small and soft and sappy, with the most wanton reddish hair, and a
briskness of body that showed no sign as yet of her accomplished years.
What they were I will never tell you; but this I'll say, that even if
they had been eighty she was the kind to cheerily dance quadrille. The
daft bell, so plainly in the jovial mood of Wanton Wully Oliver, infected
her: she smiled to herself in a way she had when remembering droll things
or just for simple jollity, and whoever saw Bell Dyce smile to herself
had never the least doubt after that she was a darling. Over the
tenements of the town the song of the bell went rollicking, and in its
hiccupping pauses went wonderfully another sound far, far removed in
spirit and suggestion--the clang of wild geese calling: the "honk, honk"
of the ganders and the challenge of their ladies come down adrift in the
snow from the bitter north.
But there was no answer from the maid in the kitchen. She had rolled
less deliberately than was usual from her blankets to the summons of the
six o'clock bell, and already, with the kitchen window open, her
bounteous form surged over the two sashes that were always so
conveniently low and handy for a gossip with any friendly passer-by on
the pavement. She drank the air of the clean chill morning dark, a heady
thing like old Tom Watson's autumn ale, full of the sentiment of the daft
days. She tilted an ear to catch the tune of the mail-boy's song that
now was echoing mellow from the cobwebbed gloom of the stable stalls, and
making a snowball from the drift of the window-ledge she threw it,
womanwise, aimlessly into the street with a pretence at combat. The
chill of the snow stung sweet in the hot palm of her, for she was young
and strong.
"Kate, you wretch!" cried a voice behind her. She drew in her head, to
find her mistress in the kitchen with the candlestick in her hand.
"Oh, m'em," cried the maid, no way abashed, banging up the window and
hurriedly crushing her more ample parts under the final hooks and eyes of
her morning wrapper--"oh, m'em, what a start you gave me! I'm all in a
p-p-palpitation. I was just takin' one mouthful of air and thinkin' to
myself yonder in the Gaelic that it was time for me to be comin' in and
risin' right."
"A Happy New Year to you, Kate MacNeill," said the mistress, taking her
hand.
"Just that, just that! and the same to you yourself, Miss Dyce. I'm
feeling fine; I'm that glad with everything," said the maid, in some
confusion at this unusual relation with her mistress. She shook the
proffered hand rapidly from side to side as if it were an egg-switch.
"And see and get the fires on quick now, like a good lass. It would
never do to be starting the New Year late,--it would be unlucky. I was
crying to you yonder from the stair-head, and wondering if you were ill,
that you did not answer me so quickly as you do for ordinar'."
"Ill, Miss Dyce!" cried the maid astounded. "Do you think I'm daft to be
ill on a New Year's day?"
"After yon--after yon shortbread you ate yesterday I would not have
wondered much if you were," said Miss Dyce, shaking her head solemnly.
"I'm not complaining, but, dear me! it was an awful lump; and I thought
it would be a bonny-like thing too, if our first-foot had to be the
doctor."
"Doctor! I declare to goodness I never had need of a doctor to me since
Dr Macphee in Colonsay put me in order with oil and things after I had
the measles," exclaimed the maid, as if mankind were like wag-at-the-wa'
clocks and could be guaranteed to go right for years if you blew through
them with a pair of bellows, or touched their works with an oily feather.
"Never mind about the measles just now, Kate," said Miss Dyce, with a
meaning look at the blackout fire.
"Neither I was mindin' them, m'em,--I don't care a spittle for them; it's
so long ago I would not know them if I saw them; I was just--"
"But get your fire on. You know we have a lot to do to-day to get
everything nice and ready for my nephew who comes from America with the
four o'clock coach."
"America!" cried the maid, dropping a saucepan lid on the floor in her
astonishment. "My stars! Did I not think it was from Chickagoo?"
"And Chicago is in America, Kate," said her mistress.
"Is it? is it? Mercy on me, how was Kate to know? I only got part of my
education,--up to the place where you carry one and add ten. America!
Dear me, just fancy! The very place that I'm so keen to go to. If I had
the money, and was in America--"
It was a familiar theme; Kate had not got fully started on it when her
mistress fled from the kitchen and set briskly about her morning affairs.
And gradually the household of Dyce the lawyer awoke wholly to a day of
unaccustomed stillness and sound, for the deep snow piled in the street
and hushed the traffic of wheel, and hoof, and shoe, but otherwise the
morning was cheerful with New Year's day noise. For the bell-ringing of
Wanton Wully was scarcely done, died down in a kind of brazen chuckle,
and the "honk, honk" of the wild geese sped seaward over gardens and back
lanes, strange wild music of the north, far-fetched and undomestic,--when
the fife band shrilly tootled through the town to the tune of "Hey,
Johnny Cope, are ye waukin' yet?" Ah, they were the proud, proud men,
their heads dizzy with glory and last night's wine, their tread on air.
John Taggart drummed--a mighty drummer, drunk or sober, who so loved his
instrument he sometimes went to bed with it still fastened to his neck,
and banged to-day like Banagher, who banged furiously, never minding the
tune much, but happy if so be that he made noise enough. And the fifers
were not long gone down the town, all with the wrong step but Johnny
Vicar, as his mother thought, when the snow was trampled under the feet
of playing children, and women ran out of their houses, and crossed the
street, some of them, I declare, to kiss each other, for 'tis a fashion
lately come, and most genteel, grown wonderfully common in Scotland.
Right down the middle of the town, with two small flags in his hat and
holly in the lapel of his coat, went old Divine the hawker, with a great
barrow of pure gold, crying "Fine Venetian oranges! wha'll buy sweet
Venetian oranges? Nane o' your foreign trash. Oranges! Oranges!--rale
New Year oranges, three a penny; bloods, a bawbee each!"
The shops opened just for an hour for fear anybody might want anything,
and many there were, you may be sure, who did, for they had eaten and
drunken everything provided the night before--which we call
Hogmanay,--and now there were currant-loaves and sweety biscuits to buy;
shortcake, sugar and lemons, ginger cordial for the boys and girls and
United Presbyterians, boiled ham for country cousins who might come
unexpected, and P. & A. MacGlashan's threepenny mutton-pies (twopence if
you brought the ashet back), ordinarily only to be had on fair-days and
on Saturdays, and far renowned for value.
Miss Minto's Millinery and Manteau Emporium was discovered at daylight to
have magically outlined its doors and windows during the night with
garlands and festoons of spruce and holly, whereon the white rose bloomed
in snow; and Miss Minto herself, in a splendid crimson cloak down to the
heels, and cheeks like cherries, was standing with mittens and her five
finger-rings on, in the middle door, saying in beautiful gentle English
"A Happy New Year" to every one who passed--even to George Jordon, the
common cowherd, who was always a little funny in his intellects, and,
because his trousers were bell-mouthed and hid his feet, could never
remember whether he was going to his work or coming from it, unless he
consulted the Schoolmaster. "The same to you, m'em, excuse my hands,"
said poor George, just touching the tips of her fingers. Then, because
he had been stopped and slewed a little from his course, he just went
back the way he had come.
Too late got up the red-faced sun, too late to laugh at Wanton Wully's
jovial bell, too late for Taggart's mighty drumming, but a jolly winter
sun,--'twas all that was wanted among the chimneys to make the day
complete.
First of all to rise in Dyce's house, after the mistress and the maid,
was the master, Daniel Dyce himself.
And now I will tell you all about Daniel Dyce: it is that behind his back
he was known as Cheery Dan.
"Your bath is ready, Dan," his sister had cried, and he rose and went
with chittering teeth to it, looked at it a moment, and put a hand in the
water. It was as cold as ice, because that water, drinking which, men
never age, comes from high mountain bens.
"That for ye to-day!" said he to the bath, snapping his fingers. "I'll
see ye far enough first!" And contented himself with a slighter wash
than usual, and shaving. As he shaved he hummed all the time, as was his
habit, an ancient air of his boyhood; to-day it was
"Star of Peace, to wanderers weary,"
with not much tone but a great conviction,--a tall, lean, clean-shaven
man of over fifty, with a fine long nose, a ruddy cheek, keen grey eyes,
and plenty of room in his clothes, the pockets of him so large and open
it was no wonder so many people tried, as it were, to put their hands
into them. And when he was dressed he did a droll thing, for from one of
his pockets he took what hereabouts we call a pea-sling, that to the rest
of the world is a catapult, and having shut one eye, and aimed with the
weapon, and snapped the rubber several times with amazing gravity, he
went upstairs into an attic and laid it on a table at the window with a
pencilled note, in which he wrote--
A NEW YEAR'S DAY PRESENT
FOR A GOOD BOY
FROM
AN UNCLE WHO DOES NOT LIKE CATS.
He looked round the little room that seemed very bright and cheerful, for
its window gazed over the garden to the east and to the valley where was
seen the King's highway. "Wonderful! wonderful!" he said to himself.
"They have made an extraordinary job of it. Very nice indeed, but just a
shade ladylike. A stirring boy would prefer fewer fal-lals."
There was little indeed to suggest the occupation of a stirring boy in
that attic, with its draped dressing-table in lilac print, its
looking-glass flounced in muslin and pink lover's-knots, its bower-like
bed canopied and curtained with green lawn, its shy scent of pot-pourri
and lavender. A framed text in crimson wools, the work of Bell Dyce when
she was in Miss Mushet's seminary, hung over the mantelpiece enjoining
all beholders to
WATCH AND PRAY.
Mr Dyce put both hands into his trousers pockets, bent a little, and
heaved in a sort of chirruping laughter. "Man's whole duty, according to
Bell Dyce," he said, "'Watch and Pray'; but they do not need to have the
lesson before them continually yonder in Chicago, I'll warrant. Yon's
the place for watching, by all accounts, however it may be about the
prayer. 'Watch and Pray'--h'm! It should be Watch _or_ Pray--it clearly
cannot be both at once with the world the way it is; you might as well
expect a man to eat pease-meal and whistle strathspeys at the same time."
He was humming "Star of Peace"--for the tune he started the morning with
usually lasted him all day,--and standing in the middle of the floor
contemplating with amusement the ladylike adornment of the room prepared
for his Chicago nephew, when a light step fell on the attic stairs, and a
woman's voice cried, "Dan! Dan Dyce! Coo-ee!"
He did not answer.
She cried again after coming up a step or two more, but still he did not
answer. He slid behind one of the bed-curtains.