THE SON FROM LONDON
In the spring of the year there used to come to Thrums a painter from
nature whom Hendry spoke of as the drawer. He lodged with Jess in my
attic, and when the weavers met him they said, "Weel, drawer," and then
passed on, grinning. Tammas Haggart was the first to say this.
The drawer was held a poor man because he straggled about the country
looking for subjects for his draws, and Jess, as was her way, gave him
many comforts for which she would not charge. That, I daresay, was why
he painted for her a little portrait of Jamie. When the drawer came
back to Thrums he always found the painting in a frame in the room.
Here I must make a confession about Jess. She did not in her secret
mind think the portrait quite the thing, and as soon as the drawer
departed it was removed from the frame to make way for a calendar. The
deception was very innocent, Jess being anxious not to hurt the donor's
feelings.
To those who have the artist's eye, the picture, which hangs in my
school-house now, does not show a handsome lad, Jamie being short and
dapper, with straw-coloured hair, and a chin that ran away into his
neck. That is how I once regarded him, but I have little heart for
criticism of those I like, and, despite his madness for a season, of
which, alas, I shall have to tell, I am always Jamie's friend. Even to
hear any one disparaging the appearance of Jess's son is to me a pain.
All Jess's acquaintances knew that in the beginning of every month a
registered letter reached her from London. To her it was not a matter
to keep secret. She was proud that the help she and Hendry needed in
the gloaming of their lives should come from her beloved son, and the
neighbours esteemed Jamie because he was good to his mother. Jess had
more humour than any other woman I have known while Leeby was but
sparingly endowed; yet, as the month neared its close, it was the
daughter who put on the humorist, Jess thinking money too serious a
thing to jest about. Then if Leeby had a moment for gossip, as when
ironing a dickey for Hendry, and the iron was a trifle too hot, she
would look archly at me before addressing her mother in these words:
"Will he send, think ye?"
Jess, who had a conviction that he would send, affected surprise at the
question.
"Will Jamie send this month, do ye mean? Na, oh, losh no! it's no to
be expeckit. Na, he couldna do't this time."
"That's what ye aye say, but he aye sends. Yes, an' vara weel ye ken
'at he will send."
"Na, na, Leeby; dinna let me ever think o' sic a thing this month."
"As if ye wasna thinkin' o't day an' nicht!"
"He's terrible mindfu', Leeby, but he doesna hae't. Na, no this month;
mebbe next month."
"Do you mean to tell me, mother, 'at ye'll no be up oot o' yer bed on
Monunday an hour afore yer usual time, lookin' for the post?"
"Na, no this time. I may be up, an' tak a look for 'im, but no
expeckin' a registerdy; na, na, that wouldna be reasonable."
"Reasonable here, reasonable there, up you'll be, keekin' (peering)
through the blind to see if the post's comin', ay, an' what's mair, the
post will come, and a registerdy in his hand wi' fifteen shillings in't
at the least."
"Dinna say fifteen, Leeby; I would never think o' sic a sum. Mebbe
five--"
"Five! I wonder to hear ye. Vera weel you ken 'at since he had
twenty-twa shillings in the week he's never sent less than half a
sovereign."
"No, but we canna expeck--"
"Expeck! No, but it's no expeck, it's get."
On the Monday morning when I came downstairs, Jess was in her chair by
the window, beaming, a piece of paper in her hand. I did not require
to be told about it, but I was told. Jess had been up before Leeby
could get the fire lit, with great difficulty reaching the window in
her bare feet, and many a time had she said that the post must be by.
"Havers," said Leeby, "he winna be for an hour yet. Come awa' back to
your bed."
"Na, he maun be by," Jess would say in a few minutes; "ou, we couldna
expeck this month."
So it went on until Jess's hand shook the blind.
"He's comin', Leeby, he's comin'. He'll no hae naething, na, I couldna
expeck---- He's by!"
"I dinna believe it," cried Leeby, running to the window, "he's juist
at his tricks again."
This was in reference to a way our saturnine post had of pretending
that he brought no letters and passing the door. Then he turned back.
"Mistress McQumpha," he cried, and whistled.
"Run, Leeby, run," said Jess, excitedly.
Leeby hastened to the door, and came back with a registered letter.
"Registerdy," she cried in triumph, and Jess, with fond hands, opened
the letter. By the time I came down the money was hid away in a box
beneath the bed, where not even Leeby could find it, and Jess was on
her chair hugging the letter. She preserved all her registered
envelopes.
This was the first time I had been in Thrums when Jamie was expected
for his ten days' holiday, and for a week we discussed little else.
Though he had written saying when he would sail for Dundee, there was
quite a possibility of his appearing on the brae at any moment, for he
liked to take Jess and Leeby by surprise. Hendry there was no
surprising, unless he was in the mood for it, and the coolness of him
was one of Jess's grievances. Just two years earlier Jamie came north
a week before his time, and his father saw him from the window.
Instead of crying out in amazement or hacking his face, for he was
shaving at the time. Henry calmly wiped his razor on the window-sill,
and said--
"Ay, there's Jamie."
Jamie was a little disappointed at being seen in this way, for he had
been looking forward for four and forty hours to repeating the
sensation of the year before. On that occasion he had got to the door
unnoticed, where he stopped to listen. I daresay he checked his
breath, the better to catch his mother's voice, for Jess being an
invalid, Jamie thought of her first. He had Leeby sworn to write the
truth about her, but many an anxious hour he had on hearing that she
was "complaining fell (considerably) about her back the day," Leeby, as
he knew, being frightened to alarm him. Jamie, too, had given his
promise to tell exactly how he was keeping, but often he wrote that he
was "fine" when Jess had her doubts. When Hendry wrote he spread
himself over the table, and said that Jess was "juist about it," or
"aff and on," which does not tell much. So Jamie hearkened painfully
at the door, and by and by heard his mother say to Leeby that she was
sure the teapot was running out. Perhaps that voice was as sweet to
him as the music of a maiden to her lover, but Jamie did not rush into
his mother's arms. Jess has told me with a beaming face how craftily
he behaved. The old man, of lungs that shook Thrums by night, who went
from door to door selling firewood, had a way of shoving doors rudely
open and crying--
"Ony rozetty roots?" and him Jamie imitated.
"Juist think," Jess said, as she recalled the incident, "what a startle
we got. As we think, Pete kicks open the door and cries oot, 'Ony
rozetty roots?' and Leeby says 'No,' and gangs to shut the door. Next
minute she screeches, 'What, what, what!' and in walks Jamie!"
Jess was never able to decide whether it was more delightful to be
taken aback in this way or to prepare for Jamie. Sudden excitement was
bad for her according to Hendry, who got his medical knowledge
second-hand from persons under treatment, but with Jamie's appearance
on the threshold Jess's health began to improve. This time he kept to
the appointed day, and the house was turned upside down in his honour.
Such a polish did Leeby put on the flagons which hung on the kitchen
wall, that, passing between them and the window, I thought once I had
been struck by lightning. On the morning of the day that was to bring
him, Leeby was up at two o'clock, and eight hours before he could
possibly arrive Jess had a night-shirt warming for him at the fire. I
was no longer anybody, except as a person who could give Jamie advice.
Jess told me what I was to say. The only thing he and his mother
quarrelled about was the underclothing she would swaddle him in, and
Jess asked me to back her up in her entreaties.
"There's no a doubt," she said, "but what it's a hantle caulder here
than in London, an' it would be a terrible business if he was to tak
the cauld."
Jamie was to sail from London to Dundee, and come on to Thrums from
Tilliedrum in the post-cart. The road at that time, however, avoided
the brae, and at a certain point Jamie's custom was to alight, and take
the short cut home, along a farm road and up the commonty. Here, too,
Hookey Crewe, the post, deposited his passenger's box, which Hendry
wheeled home in a barrow. Long before the cart had lost sight of
Tilliedrum, Jess was at her window.
"Tell her Hookey's often late on Monundays," Leeby whispered to me,
"for she'll gang oot o' her mind if she thinks there's onything wrang."
Soon Jess was painfully excited, though she sat as still as salt.
"It maun be yer time," she said, looking at both Leeby and me, for in
Thrums we went out and met our friends.
"Hoots," retorted Leeby, trying to be hardy, "Hookey canna be oot o'
Tilliedrum yet."
"He maun hae startit lang syne."
"I wonder at ye, mother, puttin' yersel in sic a state. Ye'll be ill
when he comes."
"Na, am no in nae state, Leeby, but there'll no be nae accident, will
there?"
"It's most provokin' 'at ye will think 'at every time Jamie steps into
a machine there'll be an accident. Am sure if ye would tak mair after
my father, it would be a blessin'. Look hoo cool he is."
"Whaur is he, Leeby?"
"Oh, I dinna ken. The henmost time I saw him he was layin' doon the
law aboot something to T'nowhead."
"It's an awfu' wy that he has o' ga'en oot withoot a word. I wouldna
wonder 'at he's no bein' in time to meet Jamie, an' that would be a
pretty business."
"Od, ye're sure he'll be in braw time."
"But he hasna ta'en the barrow wi' him, an' hoo is Jamie's luggage to
be brocht up withoot a barrow?"
"Barrow! He took the barrow to the saw-mill an hour syne to pick it up
at Rob Angus's on the wy."
Several times Jess was sure she saw the cart in the distance, and
implored us to be off.
"I'll tak no settle till ye're awa," she said, her face now flushed and
her hands working nervously.
"We've time to gang and come twa or three times yet," remonstrated
Leeby; but Jess gave me so beseeching a look that I put on my hat.
Then Hendry dandered in to change his coat deliberately, and when the
three of us set off, we left Jess with her eye on the door by which
Jamie must enter. He was her only son now, and she had not seen him
for a year.
On the way down the commonty, Leeby had the honour of being twice
addressed as Miss McQumpha, but her father was Hendry to all, which
shows that we make our social position for ourselves. Hendry looked
forward to Jamie's annual appearance only a little less hungrily than
Jess, but his pulse still beat regularly. Leeby would have considered
it almost wicked to talk of anything except Jamie now, but Hendry cried
out comments on the tatties, yesterday's roup, the fall in jute, to
everybody he encountered. When he and a crony had their say and
parted, it was their custom to continue the conversation in shouts
until they were out of hearing.
Only to Jess at her window was the cart late that afternoon. Jamie
jumped from it in the long great-coat that had been new to Thrums the
year before, and Hendry said calmly--
"Ay, Jamie."
Leeby and Jamie made signs that they recognized each other as brother
and sister, but I was the only one with whom he shook hands. He was
smart in his movements and quite the gentleman, but the Thrums ways
took hold of him again at once. He even inquired for his mother in a
tone that was meant to deceive me into thinking he did not care how she
was.
Hendry would have had a talk out of him on the spot, but was reminded
of the luggage. We took the heavy farm road, and soon we were at the
saw-mill. I am naturally leisurely, but we climbed the commonty at a
stride. Jamie pretended to be calm, but in a dark place I saw him take
Leeby's hand, and after that he said not a word. His eyes were fixed
on the elbow of the brae, where he would come into sight of his
mother's window. Many, many a time, I know, that lad had prayed to God
for still another sight of the window with his mother at it. So we
came to the corner where the stile is that Sam'l Dickie jumped in the
race for T'nowhead's Bell, and before Jamie was the house of his
childhood and his mother's window, and the fond, anxious face of his
mother herself. My eyes are dull, and I did not see her, but suddenly
Jamie cried out, "My mother!" and Leeby and I were left behind. When I
reached the kitchen Jess was crying, and her son's arms were round her
neck. I went away to my attic.
There was only one other memorable event of that day. Jamie had
finished his tea, and we all sat round him, listening to his adventures
and opinions. He told us how the country should be governed, too, and
perhaps put on airs a little. Hendry asked the questions, and Jamie
answered them as pat as if he and his father were going through the
Shorter Catechism. When Jamie told anything marvellous, as how many
towels were used at the shop in a day, or that twopence was the charge
for a single shave, his father screwed his mouth together as if
preparing to whistle, and then instead made a curious clucking noise
with his tongue, which was reserved for the expression of absolute
amazement. As for Jess, who was given to making much of me, she
ignored my remarks and laughed hilariously at jokes of Jamie's which
had been received in silence from me a few minutes before.
Slowly it came to me that Leeby had something on her mind, and that
Jamie was talking to her with his eyes. I learned afterwards that they
were plotting how to get me out of the kitchen, but were too impatient
to wait. Thus it was that the great event happened in my presence.
Jamie rose and stood near Jess--I daresay he had planned the scene
frequently. Then he produced from his pocket a purse, and coolly
opened it. Silence fell upon us as we saw that purse. From it he took
a neatly-folded piece of paper, crumpled it into a ball, and flung it
into Jess's lap.
I cannot say whether Jess knew what it was. Her hand shook, and for a
moment she let the ball of paper lie there.
"Open't up," cried Leeby, who was in the secret.
"What 's't?" asked Hendry, drawing nearer.
"It's juist a bit paper Jamie flung at me," said Jess, and then she
unfolded it.
"It's a five-pound note!" cried Hendry.
"Na, na, oh keep us, no," said Jess; but she knew it was.
For a time she could not speak.
"I canna tak it, Jamie," she faltered at last.
But Jamie waved his hand, meaning that it was nothing, and then, lest
he should burst, hurried out into the garden, where he walked up and
down whistling. May God bless the lad, thought I. I do not know the
history of that five-pound note, but well aware I am that it grew
slowly out of pence and silver, and that Jamie denied his passions many
things for this great hour. His sacrifices watered his young heart and
kept it fresh and tender. Let us no longer cheat our consciences by
talking of filthy lucre. Money may always be a beautiful thing. It is
we who make it grimy.