|More than a year after the King’s visit Erchie and I one day passed,
a piano-organ in the street playing “Dark Lochnagar.” The air attracted
him; he hummed it very much out of tune for some minutes after.
“Do ye hear that?” said he, “‘Dark Lochnagar’; I used ance to could
nearly play’t on the mooth harmonium. I learned it aff Duffy. Him and me
was mairried aboot the same time. We lived in the same close up in the
Coocaddens--him on the top flet, and Jinnet and me in the flet below.
Oor wifes had turn aboot o’ the same credle--and it was kept gey
throng, I’m tellin’ ye. If it wasna Duffy up the stair at nicht, efter
his wark was done, rockin’ awa’ wi’ a grudge’ter the tune o’ ‘Dark
Lochnagar,’ it was me below at no’ ‘Auld Lang Syne,’ but yon ither yin
ye ken fine. I daresay it was rockin’ the credle helped to mak’ my feet
flet, and it micht hae happened in a far waur cause.
“It was Duffy’s first wife; she dee’d, I think, to get rid o’ him--the
cratur! Duffy’s yin o’ thae men wi’ a great big lump o’ a hert that
brocht the tear to his ain een when he was singin’ ‘Bonny Annie Laurie’
doon in the Mull o’ Kintyre Vaults, but wad see his wife to bleezes
afore he wad brush his ain boots for Sunday, and her no’ weel. She fair
adored him, too. She thocht Duffy was jist the ordinar’ kind o’ man,
and that I was a kind o’ eccentric peely-wally sowl, because I sometimes
dried the dishes, and didna noo an’ then gie Jinnet a beltin’.
“‘His looks is the best o’ him,’ she wad tell Jinnet.
“‘Then he’s gey hard up!’ I wad say to Jinnet when she tellt me this.
“‘He’s no’ very strong,’--that was aye her cry, when she was fryin’
anither pun’ o’ ham and a pair o’ kippers for his breakfast.
“Duffy’s first wean was Wullie John. Ye wad think, to hear Duffy brag
abobt him, that it was a new patent kind o’ wean, and there wasna
anither in Coocaddens, whaur, I’m tellin’ ye, weans is that rife ye hae
to walk to yer work skliffin’ yer feet in case ye tramp on them.
“Duffy’s notion was to rear a race o’ kind o’ gladiators, and he rubbed
him a’ ower every nicht wi’ olive-oil to mak’ him soople. Nane o’
your fancy foods for weans for Wullie John. It was rale auld
Caledonia--parridge and soor dook, that soor the puir wee smout
went aboot grewin’ wi’ its mooth a’ slewed to the side, as if it was
practising the wye the women haud their hairpins.
“Mony a time I’ve seen oor Jinnet sneak him into oor hoose to gie him
curds-and-cream; he said he liked them fine, because they were sae
slippy.
“‘Show your temper, Wullie John,’ Duffy wad tell him when onybody was
in the hoose; and the wee cratur was trained at that to put on a fearfu’
face and haud up his claws.
“‘See that!’ Duffy wad say as prood as ony-thing; ‘the game’s there, I’m
tellin’ ye.’
“Then Duffy began to harden him. He wad haud him up by the lug to see
if he was game, and if he grat that was coonted wan to Duffy, and Wullie
John got nae jeely on his piece. He was washed every mornin’, winter and
summer, in cauld watter in the jaw-box, and rubbed wi’ a tooel as coorse
as a carrot-grater till the skin was peelin’ aff his back.
“‘Ye need to bring oot the glow,’ Duffy wad say to me.
“‘If it gangs on much further,’ I tellt him, ‘I’ll bring oot the polis.’
“Wullie John was fair on the road for bein’ an A1 gladiator, but he went
and dee’d on Duffy, and I never saw a man mair chawed.
“Duffy’s next was a laddie too--they ca’d him Alexander. There was gaun
to be nane o’ their hardenin’ dydoes wi’ Alexander.
“It was aboot the time Duffy took to politics, and said the thing the
Democratic pairty wanted was educated men wi’ brains. He made up his
mind that Alexander wad never cairry a coal-poke, but get the best o’
learnin’ if it cost a pound.
“He wasna very strong, was Alexander, and Duffy fed him maist o’ the
time on Gregory’s mixture, cod-ile, and ony ither stuff he could buy by
word o’ mooth at the apothecary’s withoot a doctor’s line. Alexander
was getting medicine poored into him that often he was feared to gant
in case he wad jar his teeth on a table-spoon when his een was shut. He
wore hot-water bottles to his feet in the deid o’ summer, and if he
had a sair heid in the mornin’ afore he started for the school on the
geography days he was put to his bed and fed on tapioca. Everything went
wrang wi’ puir wee Alexander. The hives went in wi’ him, and the dregs
o’ the measles cam’ oot. He took every trouble that was gaun aboot
except gymnastics; Duffy took him to Professor Coats, the bump-man, and
had his heid examined; the Professor said it was as fine a heid o’ its
kind as ever he saw, and Duffy put a bawbee on the bag o’ coals richt
aff, and began to put the money bye for Alexander’s college fees.
“Alexander’s a man nod, and daein’ fine. He’s in the gas office; the
only time he went to college was to read the meter there.
“Ye canna tell whit laddies’ll turn oot, and it’s no’ ony better wi’
lassies. Duffy had a wheen o’ lassies; I forget hoo mony there was
a’thegither, but when they were coortin’ ye wad think ye were gaim doon
the middle o’ the Haymakers’ country dance when ye cam’ up the close at
nicht.
“The auldest--she was Annie--was naething particular fancy; she jist
nursed the rest, and made their peenies, and washed for them, and
trimmed her ain hats, and made Duffy’s auld waistcoats into suits for
the wee yins, and never got to the dancin’, so naebody merried her, and
she’s there yet.
“A’ the chaps cam’ efter her sisters.
“The sisters never let on aboot the coal-ree and Duffy’s lorry, but said
their paw was in the coal tred--a kind o’ a coal-maister. It was a
bonny sicht to see them merchin’ oot to their cookery lessons in the
efternoons, their hair as curly’s onything, and their beds no’ made.
“The days they tried new dishes frae the cookery lessons at hame, Duffy
took his meat in the Western Cookin’ Depot, and cam’ hame when it
was dark. Yin o’ them played the mandoline. The mandoline’s a noble
instrument; it cheers the workman’s hame; a lassie gaun alang the street
wi’ a nice print dress, and a case wi’ a mandoline’, is jist the sort
I wad fancy mysel’ if I was a young yin and there wasna Jinnet. A
fruiterer merried the mandoline. The nicht she was merrit, Duffy sang
‘Dark Lochnagar,’ and winked at me like a’ that.
“‘Learn your dochters the mandoline, Erchie,’ says he in my lug, ‘and
they’ll gang aff your haunds like snaw aff a dyke. That’s the advice I
wad gie ye if ye had ony dochters left. I wad hae made it the piano, but
we couldna get a piano up past the bend on the stair.’
“Efter the mandoline went, the boys begood to scramble for Duffy’s
dochters as if they were bowl-money. The close-mooth was never clear o’
cabs, and the rice was always up to your ankles on the stair. Duffy sang
‘Dark Lochnagar’ even-on, and aye kept winkin’ at me.
“‘That’s the mandoline awa’,’ says he, ‘and the scientific dressmakin’,
and the shorthand, and the “Curfew must hot Ring To-night,” and the
revival meetin’s, and the no’ very-weel yin that needs a nice quate
hame; they’re a’ gane, Erchie, and I’m no’ gien jeely-dishes awa’ wi’
them either. I’m my lee-lane, me and Annie; if ony o’ thae chaps cam’
efter Annie, I wad chase him doon the stair.’
“‘Man! Duffy,’ I says till him, ‘ye’re selfish enough workin’ aff a’
them ornamental dochters on the young men o’ Gleska that did ye nae
hairm, and keepin’ the best o’ the hale jing-bang in the hoose a’ the
time in case they see her.’
“‘Let them tak’ it!’ says Duffy, ‘I’m no’ a bit vexed for them,’ and he
started to sing ‘Dark Lochnagar’ as lood as ever, while Annie was
puttin’ on his boots.
“That was in Duffy’s auld days. He merried a second wife, and it was
a fair tak’-in, for he thocht a wee greengrocer’s shop she had was her
ain, and a’ the time it was her brither’s.
“‘That’s the mandoline for you, Duffy,’ says I, when he tellt me.
“But that yin died on him too; she died last Mertinmas; Duffy’s kind
o’ oot o’ wifes the noo. And the warst o’t is that his dochter Annie’s
gettin’ merried.”