girl. He might have done it now――quite easily.
But he didn’t――he couldn’t.
“Na; I canna gang,” he said. “An’――an’ ma fayther’ll be waitin’ for
his tobacco. Guidnicht.” He glanced at her with a miserable smile, and
departed――bolted.
Poor Jessie Mary with her little natural vanities!
Poor Macgregor! He went home hot and ashamed――he could not have told
why. He did not grudge the gifts, yet vaguely wished he had not given
them.
And he dreamed that night of, among other queer things, a shop window,
a plait of fair hair on a scarlet shoulder, and a black beetle.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Mercy, laddie!” exclaimed Mrs. Robinson, as her son entered the
kitchen, a little late for tea. “What ha’e ye been daein’ to yer
face?”
The colour induced by the question seemed almost to extinguish the
hectic spot at Macgregor’s left cheek-bone.
“Washin’ it,” he answered shortly, taking his accustomed chair.
“But it’s cut.”
“Tits, Lizzie!” muttered Mr. Robinson. “Are ye for toast, Macgreegor?”
“He’s been shavin’ his whiskers,” said Jimsie. “Did ye no’ ken
Macgreegor’s gettin’ whiskers, Maw?” he went on in spite of a warning
pressure from sister Jeannie. “Paw, what way dae folk get whiskers?”
“Dear knows,” returned his father briefly. “Lizzie, can ye no’ gi’e
Macgreegor a cup o’ tea?”
Lizzie lifted the cosy from the brown teapot. “Where did ye get the
razor, Macgreegor?”
“He hasna got a razor, Maw,” said Jimsie. “He does it wi’ a wee
knife.”
“Shurrup!” Macgreegor growled, whereupon Jimsie choked and his eyes
filled with tears.
“Macgreegor,” said his mother, “that’s no’ the way to speak to yer wee
brither.”
“Macgreegor,” said his sister, “I’ll mak’ ye a bit o’ hot toast, if ye
like.”
“Ay, Jeannie,” said John quickly, “mak’ him a bit o’ hot toast, an’
I’ll look after Jimsie.” He turned the conversation to the subject of
a great vessel that had been launched into the Clyde that morning.
Sullenly Macgregor took the cup from his mother’s hand and forthwith
devoted his attention to his meal. Seldom had resentment taken such
possession of his soul. Another word from his mother or Jimsie, and he
would have retorted violently and flung out of the room. The mild
intervention of his sister and father had saved a scene. Though his
face cooled, his heart remained hot; though hungry, he ate little,
including the freshly made toast, which he accepted with a
gracelessness that probably shamed him even more than it hurt Jeannie.
Poor sensitive, sulky youth!――a hedge-hog with its skin turned
outside-in could not suffer more.
For the first time in the course of his married life John Robinson
really doubted Lizzie’s discretion. It was with much diffidence,
however, that he referred to the matter after Macgregor had gone out,
and while Jeannie was superintending Jimsie’s going to bed.
“Lizzie,” he began, eyeing his cold pipe, “did ye happen to notice
that Macgreegor was a wee thing offended the nicht?”
Mrs. Robinson did not halt in her business of polishing a bread plate.
“Macgreegor’s gettin’ ower easy offended,” she said, carelessly
enough.
John struck a match and held it without application to his pipe until
the flame scorched his hardened fingers. “Speakin’ frae experience,”
he said slowly, “there’s twa things that a young man tak’s vera
serious-like. The first――――”
“Wha’s the young man?”
“Macgreegor.... Aw, Lizzie!”
“Macgreegor’s a laddie.”
“He’s a young man――an’ fine ye ken it, wife!”
Lizzie put down the plate and took up another. “An’ what does he tak’
serious-like?” she enquired, coolly.
“Firstly,” said John, with a great effort, and stuck.
“Ye’ll be preachin’ a sermon directly,” said she. “Can ye no’ licht
yer pipe an’ speak nateral?”
“Hoo can I speak nateral when I ken ye’re makin’ a mock o’ me?”
“Havers, man!” she said, becoming good-humoured lest he should lose
his temper; “licht yer pipe. I’m listenin’.”
John lit his pipe in exceedingly methodical fashion. “Weel, Lizzie,”
he began at last, “I jist wanted to say that when a young man’s
gettin’ hair on his face, ye――ye shouldna notice it.”
“I didna notice it.”
“Weel, ye shouldna refer to it.”
“It was the cut I referred to.”
John sucked at his pipe and scratched his head. “That’s true,” he
admitted. “Still, if yer sister had a wudden leg, ye wudna refer to
the noise on the stair. It wasna like ye, Lizzie, to hurt Macgreegor’s
feelin’s.”
Mrs. Robinson put down the plate with an unusual clatter. Hurt
Macgreegor’s feelings!――She?――The idea! “Are ye feenished?” she
snapped.
John nerved himself. “There’s anither thing that it’s best no’ to
refer to――anither thing that a young man tak’s vera serious-like. When
a young man begins to tak’ an interest in the lassies――――”
“Oh, man, can ye no stop haverin’?” she cried. “Ha’e ye forgot the
laddie’s age?”
“It’s the shavin’ age, an’ that means――――”
“Ma brither Rubbert was nineteen afore he put a razor to his face.”
“Yer brither Rubbert was never what I wud ca’ a female fancier. Of
course that wasna his fau’t; he was jist as the Lord made him, and
he’s turned oot a vera successful man, an’ for a’ we ken his wife
Sarah’s maybe better nor she’s bonny. But yer son Macgreegor――――”
“Macgreegor wud never look at the lassies. He’s ower shy.”
“Whiles it’s the kind that doesna look that leaps the furdest. But
there’s waur things in the world nor razors and lassies,” said John,
with a feeble laugh, “an’ I jist wanted to warn ye no’ to ask
questions, even though ye should see Macgreegor weerin’ his Sunday tie
every nicht in the week! I hope ye’re no’ offended, Lizzie.”
But it is to be feared that Lizzie was offended just then. She had not
been the better half for eighteen years without knowing it; she had
grown to expect her easy-going husband’s cheerful acquiescence in
practically all she did, and to regard her acceptance of his most mild
remonstrances as a sort of favour. And now he was actually giving her
advice concerning her treatment of her firstborn! It was too much for
her pride.
She set her mouth in a hard line, threw up her head, and proceeded
with her polishing.
John waited for a couple of minutes, then sighed and took up his
evening paper.
* * * * *
Meanwhile Macgregor was having his troubles. He contrived to dodge
Willie Thomson, who nowadays seemed always to be where he was not
wanted, but the operation involved a _detour_ of nearly a quarter of a
mile, in the course of which he was held up by another youth of his
acquaintance. Ten minutes were wasted in listening with ill-concealed
impatience to fatuous observations on the recent play of certain
professional footballers, and then he continued his journey only to
fall, metaphorically speaking, into the arms of Jessie Mary emerging
from a shop.
“Hullo, Mac! I thought ye was deid!” was her blithe greeting, the
“sausage roll” phrase having at long last served its day. “Ye’re in a
hurry,” she added, “but so am I, so ye can walk back to the corner wi’
me.”
Macgregor mumbled something to the effect that he was in no special
hurry, and, possibly in order to give a touch of truth to his
falsehood, turned and accompanied her.
“Ye’ve no’ been gi’ein’ the girls a treat lately,” she remarked. “I
ha’ena noticed ye floatin’ aroun’. Ha’e ye been keepin’ the hoose at
nicht?”
“Whiles,” he replied, and enquired with some haste, “Hoo did ye enjoy
the dance last week, Jessie?”
“Oh, dinna mention it!” she cried, with a toss of her head. “I didna
gang to it.”
“Ye didna gang to the dance!”
“If I had went, it wud ha’e meant bloodshed,” she impressively
informed him. “Ye see, there was twa chaps implorin’ me to gang wi’
them, an’ they got that fierce aboot it that I seen it wudna ha’e been
safe to gang wi’ either. A riot in a ballroom is no’ a nice thing. An’
if I had went wi’ a third party, it wud ha’e been as much as _his_
life was worth. So I jist bided at hame.”
Macgregor began, but was not allowed to complete, a sympathetic
remark.
“Oh, I was glad I didna gang. The dance turned oot to be a second-rate
affair entirely――no’ half-a-dizzen shirt fronts in the comp’ny. An’ I
believe there wasna three o’ the men could dance for nuts, an’ the
refreshments was rotten.”
They had now reached the appointed corner.
“Jist as weel ye didna gang, then,” absently said Macgregor, halting.
“Come up to the close,” said Jessie Mary. “I’ve something to show ye.
Ay; it was jist as weel, as ye say. But there’s a champion dance
comin’ off on the nineteenth o’ November――the young men o’ the hosiery
department are gettin’ it up――naething second-rate aboot _it_. Ye
should come to it, Macgreegor.” She touched his arm――unintentionally
perhaps. “Plenty o’ pretty girls――though I wudna guarantee their
dancin’. I’ve no’ decided yet wha I’ll gang wi’.” She paused.
Macgregor did not speak. “Ye see, I’m parteec’lar wha I dance wi’,”
she went on softly, “an’ I expec’ you’re the same. Some girls are like
bags o’ flour an’ ithers are like telegraph poles, but there’ll be few
o’ that sort at the hosiery dance. An’ onyway”――she laughed――“ye could
aye fa’ back on _this_ girl――eh?”
“I dinna think ye wud be that hard up for a partner,” said Macgregor,
suddenly stimulated by a flash of her eyes in the lamplight. “But I’m
no’ awfu’ keen on the dancin’.”
“Ye danced fine when ye was a wee laddie. I mind when ye danced the
Highland Fling in the kitchen, on Hogmanay. That was the nicht I had
to kiss ye to get ye oot o’ the ring. Ye was ower shy to kiss me. An’
you an’ Wullie Thomson started the fightin’, because he laughed. D’ye
mind?”
“That’s an auld story,” he said, with embarrassment.
“I suppose it is,” she admitted reluctantly. Then cheerfully: “Weel,
here we are! But wait till I let ye see something.” She halted at the
mouth of the close and began to unbutton her jacket.
“Ye’ve never seen the belt since ye gi’ed it to me, Macgreegor. I weer
it whiles in the evenin’. There ye are! It looks fine, does it no’?
Maybe a wee thing wide. I could dae wi’ it an inch or twa tighter.
Feel.”
She took his hand and slid his fingers between the metal and the white
cotton blouse. Jessie Mary had at least one quite admirable
characteristic: she doted on white garments and took pride in their
spotlessness. A very elemental sense for the beautiful, yet who dare
despise it? In these grimy days purity of any kind is great gain.
This girl’s hunger for the homage and admiration of the other sex was
not so much abnormal as unrestrained. Her apparent lack of modesty was
in reality a superabundance of simplicity――witness her shallow
artifices and transparent little dishonesties which deceived few save
herself and the callowest of youths. Men “took their fun off her.” And
even Macgregor was not to be entrapped now. There is nothing so dead
as the fallen fancy of a boy. Moreover, Macgregor was still at the
stage when a girl’s face is her whole fortune, when the trimmest waist
and the prettiest curves are no assets whatsoever.
For a moment or two he fingered the belt, awkwardly, to be sure, but
with as much emotion as though it were a dog’s collar.
“Ay,” he said, “ye’re ower jimp for it.” And put his hand in his
pocket.
Then, indeed, it was forced on Jessie Mary that somehow her charms had
failed to hold her youngest admirer. The knowledge rankled. Yet she
carried it off fairly well.
“Ye’re no’ the first to tell me I’ve an extra sma’ waist,” she said,
with a toss of her head. Then, as if struck by a remembrance of some
duty or engagement: “But I’ve nae mair time to stan’ gassin’ wi’ you.
So long!” She ran briskly up the stone stair, humming a popular tune.
“So long,” returned Macgregor, and resumed his interrupted journey,
rather pleased than otherwise with himself. He realised, though not in
so many words, that he had conducted himself in more manly fashion
than ever before. It did not for a moment occur to him that he had
left a big “Why?” behind him, not only in the mind of Jessie Mary, but
in Willie Thomson’s also.
* * * * *
His pilgrimage ended at the illuminated window of M. Tod’s stationery
and fancy goods shop. Jingling the few coppers in his pockets, he
appeared to be deliberating a weighty problem of extensive purchases,
while, as a matter of fact, he inwardly debated the most profitable
ways of wasting a penny. While he would now gladly have given all he
possessed――to wit, ninepence――to win a smile from the girl with the
scarlet blouse and the ripe-corn-yellow pigtail, he was not prepared
to squander more than he could help for the benefit of her employer.
The opaque panels at the back of the window were closed, the door of
the shop was composed chiefly of ground glass; wherefore he had no
inkling as to which person he was likely to encounter at the receipt
of custom. He was hoping and waiting for a customer to enter the shop,
so that he might gain a glimpse of the interior with the opening of
the door, when suddenly the lights in the window were lowered.
Evidently it was near to closing time.
Hastily deciding to “burst” the sum of one penny on the purchase of a
pencil――an article for which he had more respect than use――he entered
the doorway and turned the handle. He had forgotten the spring bell.
When he pushed the door inwards, it “struck one”――right from the
shoulder, so to speak. Who will assert that the ordinary healthy youth
has no nerves? ’Tis a hoggishly healthy youth who does not bustle with
them. The sturdy Macgregor wavered on the threshold; and as he wavered
he heard behind him a badly stifled guffaw.
Next moment a hearty push in the small of the back propelled him into
the shop. With a hot countenance he pulled up, guessing who had pushed
him, and strove to look as if this were his usual mode of entering a
place of business. In his confusion he missed the quick glance of the
girl seated at the desk on the window-end of the counter. Her head was
bent low over her writing. He noticed, however, that she was wearing a
white blouse――which did not remind him of Jessie Mary――and that she
had a scarlet bow at her neck.
“Yes, sir?” A mouse-like human being slipped from the back of the shop
to the middle point of the counter. “Yes, sir?” it repeated, with an
accent on the query. The girl at the desk took no notice.
Macgregor approached. “I was wantin’ a pencil,” he said in the tone of
one requesting a pint of prussic acid.
“A pencil!” exclaimed the mouse-like human being, as though she had a
dim recollection of hearing of such a thing long, long ago. “A
pencil――oh, certainly,” she added, more hopefully.
“Penny or ha’penny,” murmured the girl at the desk.
“Penny or ha’penny?” demanded the mouse-like human being, almost
pertly.
Men didn’t expect change out of a penny! “A penny yin,” said Macgregor
with an attempt at indifference. He tried to look at the girl, but
could not get his eyes higher than her elbow.
“A penny pencil!” The mouse-like human being assumed an expression
suitable to a person who has just discovered the precise situation of
the North Pole, but not the Pole itself.
“Top drawer on your left, Miss Tod,” whispered the girl at the desk.
“Quite so, Christina,” Miss Tod replied with dignity. There were times
when she might have been accused of copying her assistant’s manners.
She opened the drawer, which was a deep one, peered into it, groped,
and brought forth three bundles of pencils. With sudden mildness she
enquired of the girl: “These?... Those?”
“No; them!” said Christina, forgetting her grammar and grabbing the
third bundle. “Wait a minute.” She slipped lightly from her stool and
gently edged M. Tod from the position at the counter which had been
familiar to the latter for five-and-thirty years. “This,” she said to
Macgregor, laying the bundle in front of him, “is a special line. One
dozen――price threepence.” She looked over his head in a manner
suggesting that it was quite immaterial to her whether he purchased
the dozen or faded away on the spot.
But he had his dignity too. Producing three pennies from two pockets,
he laid them on the counter, took up the bundle of pencils, said
“Thank ye” to nobody in particular, and marched out. Nor did he forget
to close the door behind him.
The stationer and her assistant regarded each other for several
seconds.
“Dae ye think,” said M. Tod slowly, “that that young man is a
newspaper reporter?”
“No,” replied Christina, with a sniff or two of her straight little
nose.
“Or a pictur’ artist?” said M. Tod, conveying the two bundles to the
wrong drawer.
Christina, without a word, recovered them and put them into their
proper places. She mounted her stool and whipped up a pen.
M. Tod sighed. “I never used to keep pencils at that price. They canna
be vera guid.”
“They’re rotten.”
“Oh, lassie!”
“Sell――or gang bankrupt,” said Christina with enough bitter cynicism
for twenty-one. “There’s a penny profit on the bundle. _Ex_――cuse me.”
She dipped her pen.
* * * * *
As Macgregor was nearing his home, a prey to misery and wroth, a
grinning face popped from a close-mouth.
“Haw! haw! Macgreegor! So ye’re courtin’, are ye?”
As the clock incontinently strikes when the hour has come, so struck
Macgregor. And he struck so hard, that it was afterwards necessary he
should see Willie Thomson to the latter’s door. Alone again, he cast
the bundle of pencils into a dark entry and made his way home.
His father opened the door, smiling a welcome. “Weel, Macgreegor――――”
“I’m wearied,” said the boy, and passed straightway to his room and
bolted the door. Jimsie was sleeping like a log, and was, as usual,
occupying most of the bed.
Macgregor stood at the old chest of drawers that served as
dressing-table, his elbows planted thereon, his face in his hands. He
_was_ wearied.
But under his tired eyes lay a small oblong package with a covering of
newspaper. The neatness of it made him think of his mother; she had a
way of making next to nothing look something important in a parcel.
Presently, wondering a little, he undid the paper.
It contained one of his father’s old razors.
Five minutes later he was enjoying a _real_ shave. The luxury was only
exceeded by the importance he felt! And only two cuts that bled worth
mentioning....
How one’s life may be changed in two short hours!
But Macgregor was still without regret for having flung the pencils
into the dark entry.
CHAPTER SIX
Circumstance rather than circumspection was accountable for the fact
that Macgregor followed the elusive, winding trail of love alone. The
tender adventures of our ’teens usually consist in encounters between
two boys and two girls; two friends who tacitly admit that they want
to meet the girls; two friends who pretend that they do not want to
see the boys at any distance; and to sum up, two pairs of young human
beings with but a single thought――themselves. Also it may happen, now
and then, that for lack of likelier company Prince Charming goes
hunting with Master Fathead, while Princess Lilian Rose lays the scent
along with Miss Gooseberry, which but adds plausibility to the
assumption that neither sex has the courage of its inclinations. For
to be honest, there is no cowardice like that of lad’s love; no
hypocrisy like that of lass’s. But, surely, you remember! And if so it
happened that in your own day you, perforce, fared solitary to the
chase, you will sympathise all the more with the unheroic hero of this
slight record.
In this respect Macgregor was not fortunate in his male friends. The
oldest thereof, Willie Thomson, openly contemned the female sex, not
omitting his aunt; the others confined their gallantries to the breezy
pastimes of pushing girls off the sidewalk, bawling pleasantries after
them, and guffawing largely at their own wit or the feminine
_repartee_. Their finer instincts were doubtless still dormant. The
only mortals worthy of respect were sundry more or less prominent
personages whose feet or fists were their fortunes. In these days the
adoration of the active by the inert is, one hopes, at its zenith of
inflation. Again, to put it now in metaphor, Macgregor’s friends could
do with a brass band in scarlet uniform all the time, but they had no
use for a secret orchestra of muted strings. All of which was
perfectly natural――just as natural as Macgregor’s inexplicable
preference for the secret orchestra. Spring comes early or late; the
calendar neither foretells nor records its coming. A lad and a
lass――how and when and why the one first realises that the other is
more than a mere human being are questions without answers. Well, it
is a mercy that the world still holds something that cannot be
explained away.
In one sense this boy was no more refined than his neighbours; in
another they were coarser than he. Remains the fact that he followed
the trail alone――or thought he did.
Willie Thomson, for one, was interested. He had been interested to the
extent of grinning in Macgregor’s early tenderness for little Katie,
and to the extent of sniggering in his friend’s bashful pursuit of
Jessie Mary. But now the interest was that of the boy who discovers a
nest just beyond his hand and wonders what sort of eggs he will get
if, somehow, he can reach it. On the whole, Willie resented his
swollen nose and cut lip less than the recent ill-disguised attempts
to avoid his company. The latter rankled. Truth to tell, without
Macgregor he was rather a lonely creature, a kind of derelict. No one
really wanted him. He was not without acquaintances, shirkers like
himself; but in the congregation of loafers is no true comradeship.
Without admitting it even to himself, he still admired the boy who had
faithfully championed his cause――not always virtuous――in the past,
whose material possessions he had invariably shared, whose stolid
sense of honour had so often puzzled his own mischievous mind, whose
home he had envied despite a certain furtive dread of the woman who
ruled there. Altogether it may be questioned whether Willie’s grudge
was directed against his old friend and not against that which had
caused his old friend’s defection. At all events, he began to spare
Macgregor any necessity for dodging, and took to shadowing him on his
solitary strolls.
On the grey Saturday afternoon of the week rendered so eventful by his
first real shave, Macgregor was once more standing by the window of M.
Tod’s shop. He was endeavouring to prop up his courage with the
recollection of the fact that a fortnight ago, at the same hour as the
present, there had been no old woman behind the counter, and with the
somewhat rash deduction that no old woman was there now.
He was also wondering what he could buy for a penny without making a
fool of himself. The spending of a penny when there is absolutely
nothing one wants to buy is not quite so simple a transaction as at
first thought it may seem――unless, of course, the shop is packed with
comestibles; and even then one may hesitate to choose. Besides,
Macgregor was obsessed by the memory of the pencil transaction of
three nights ago. Had he but kept his head then, and confined his
purchase to a single pencil, he might now have had a fair excuse for
requiring another. At any rate, he could have met suspicion with the
explanation that he had lost the first. But who would believe that he
had used, or lost, a whole dozen within the brief space of three days?
A wretched position to be in, for nothing else in the world of
stationery was quite so natural and easy to ask for as a
pencil――unless a―――― Why had he not thought of it before?――a pen!
Saved! He would enter boldly, as one who had every right to do so, and
demand to be shown some pencils――no, pens, of course. There were many
varieties of pens, he knew, even in small shops, so his selection
would take time――lots of time! If only he were _sure_ the old woman
wasn’t there.
And just then the bell rang, the door of the shop opened and closed,
and the old woman herself came out. In spite of her hat Macgregor
recognised her at once. She turned her face skywards to make certain
that it wasn’t raining, gave a satisfied smirk, which Macgregor
accepted with a fearful start, though it was intended for the window
and its contents, and trotted up the street.