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A HOLIDAY IN BED
And other Sketches.
BY
J. M. BARRIE,
AUTHOR OF
The Little Minister. A Window in Thrums.
Auld Licht Idylls, etc.
WITH A SHORT BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR
NEW YORK PUBLISHING COMPANY,
NEW YORK.
[Illustration: J. M. Barrie.]
COPYRIGHTED 1892,
NEW YORK PUBLISHING CO.
PRESS AND BINDERY OF
HISTORICAL PUBLISHING CO.,
PHILADELPHIA, PA.
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE, 15
A HOLIDAY IN BED, 23
LIFE IN A COUNTRY MANSE, 37
LIFE IN A COUNTRY MANSE--A WEDDING IN
A SMIDDY, 49
A POWERFUL DRUG, 61
EVERY MAN HIS OWN DOCTOR, 73
GRETNA GREEN REVISITED, 87
MY FAVORITE AUTHORESS, 111
THE CAPTAIN OF THE SCHOOL, 121
THOUGHTFUL BOYS MAKE THOUGHTFUL MEN, 131
IT, 145
TO THE INFLUENZA, 153
FOUR-IN-HAND NOVELISTS, 161
RULES ON CARVING, 173
ON RUNNING AFTER A HAT, 179
JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE.
James Matthew Barrie was born at Kirriemuir, Forfarshire, on May 9,
1860. Kirriemuir, as soberly stated by the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, is
"a borough of barony and a market town of Forfarshire, Scotland,
beautifully situated on an eminence above the glen through which the
Gairie flows. It lies about five miles northwest of Forfar, and about
sixty-two miles north of Edinburgh. The special industry of the town is
linen weaving, for which large power-loom factories have recently been
built." Mr. Barrie has made his birthplace famous as Thrums, after
hesitating for a little between that name and Whins, which is the word
used in the earliest Auld Licht sketches.
Only a part of Mr. Barrie's boyhood was spent in Kirriemuir. At an early
age he went to Dumfries, where his brother was inspector of schools. He
was a pupil in the Dumfries Academy. At that time Thomas Carlyle was a
not unfrequent visitor to the town, where his sister, Mrs. Aitken, and
his friend, the venerable poet editor Thomas Aird, were then living.
Carlyle is the only author by whom Mr. Barrie thinks he has been
influenced. The Carlyle fever did not last very long, but was acute for
a time. He fervently defended his master against the innumerable critics
called into activity by Mr. Froude's biography. Apart from this,
Dumfries seems to have left no very definite mark on his mind. The only
one of his teachers who impressed him was Dr. Cranstoun, the
accomplished translator from the Latin poets, and he rather indirectly
than directly. In the Dumfries papers Mr. Barrie inaugurated his
literary career by contributing accounts of cricket matches and letters,
signed "Paterfamilias," urging the desirability of pupils having longer
holidays. He was the idlest of schoolboys, and seldom opened his books
except to draw pictures on them.
At the age of eighteen, Mr. Barrie entered Edinburgh University. His
brother had studied in Aberdeen with another famous native of
Kirriemuir, Dr. Alexander Whyte, of Free St. George's, Edinburgh. At
Aberdeen you could live much more cheaply, also it was easier there to
get a bursary, enough to keep soul and body together till an income
could be earned. The struggles and triumphs of Aberdeen students greatly
impressed Mr. Barrie, who has often repeated the story thus told in the
_Nottingham Journal_:--
"I knew three undergraduates who lodged together in a dreary house at
the top of a dreary street, two of whom used to study until two in the
morning, while the third slept. When they shut up their books they woke
number three, who arose, dressed, and studied till breakfast time. Among
the many advantages of this arrangement, the chief was that, as they
were dreadfully poor, one bed did for the three. Two of them occupied it
at one time, and the third at another. Terrible privations? Frightful
destitution? Not a bit of it. The Millennium was in those days. If life
was at the top of a hundred steps, if students occasionally died of
hunger and hard work combined, if the midnight oil only burned to show a
ghastly face 'weary and worn,' if lodgings were cheap and dirty, and
dinners few and far between, life was still real and earnest, in many
cases it did not turn out an empty dream."
In 1882 he graduated, and was for some months in Edinburgh doing
nothing in particular. In the meantime he saw an advertisement asking
for a leader writer to an English provincial paper. The salary offered
was three guineas a week. He made application for this, and found
himself, in February, 1883, installed as leader writer to the
_Nottingham Journal_. He was not editor, the work of arranging the paper
being in other hands; but he was allowed to write as much as he pleased,
and practically what he pleased.
During the last months of his stay in Nottingham, Mr. Barrie had begun
to send articles to the London papers. The first of these was published
by Mr. Stead, then editing the _Pall Mall Gazette_.
In March, 1888, a much more important book, "Auld Licht Idyls," was
published. When Mr. Barrie came up to London he had letters of
introduction from Professor Masson to an eminent publisher, and to Mr.
John Morley. He took his "Auld Licht Idyls" to the publisher, and was
told that, although they were pleasant reading, they would never be
successful as a book. Mr. Morley, then editor of _Macmillan_, asked him
to send a list of subjects on which he was willing to write. The
request was complied with, but the subjects were returned by Mr. Morley
with the singularly uncharacteristic comment that they were not
sufficiently up to date. Mr. Morley, who has since read with great
admiration all Mr. Barrie's works, was much astonished at having this
brought to his remembrance the other day.
"When a Man's Single" was published in September, 1888, dedicated to W.
Robertson Nicoll. The story was originally published in _The British
Weekly_, but, as his manner is, Mr. Barrie made great changes in
revising it for publication. It was well received, and was pronounced by
the _Daily News_ as "Perhaps the best single volume novel of the year."
It is not at all autobiographical, though it gives the author's
impressions of journalistic life in Nottingham and London. Perhaps the
best parts of it are those devoted to Thrums, of which George Meredith
expressed special admiration.
Mr. Barrie's greatest book, however, was yet to come. "A Window in
Thrums" was published in May, 1889. It contained articles contributed to
the _National Observer_, _The British Weekly_, and the _St. James's
Gazette_, along with new matter. It is not too much to say that it was
received with one burst of acclamation. It has been the most popular of
the author's works, and it is hard to conceive how he can surpass
certain parts of it. It has found admirers among all classes.
"My Lady Nicotine," reprinted from the _St. James's Gazette_, was
published in April, 1890, and a second edition appeared in September,
1890, and although issued later than "A Window in Thrums," it is really
in point of time almost the first of the author's books.
In January, 1891, Mr. Barrie commenced a story in _Good Words_, entitled
"The Little Minister," which has since been issued in book form, and is
acknowledged to be his best book.
A HOLIDAY IN BED.
Now is the time for a real holiday. Take it in bed, if you are wise.
People have tried a holiday in bed before now, and found it a failure,
but that was because they were ignorant of the rules. They went to bed
with the open intention of staying there, say, three days, and found to
their surprise that each morning they wanted to get up. This was a novel
experience to them, they flung about restlessly, and probably shortened
their holiday. The proper thing is to take your holiday in bed with a
vague intention of getting up in another quarter of an hour. The real
pleasure of lying in bed after you are awake is largely due to the
feeling that you ought to get up. To take another quarter of an hour
then becomes a luxury. You are, in short, in the position of the man who
dined on larks. Had he seen the hundreds that were ready for him, all
set out on one monster dish, they would have turned his stomach; but
getting them two at a time, he went on eating till all the larks were
exhausted. His feeling of uncertainty as to whether these might not be
his last two larks is your feeling that, perhaps, you will have to get
up in a quarter of an hour. Deceive yourself in this way, and your
holiday in bed will pass only too quickly.
Sympathy is what all the world is craving for, and sympathy is what the
ordinary holiday-maker never gets. How can we be expected to sympathize
with you when we know you are off to Perthshire to fish? No; we say we
wish we were you, and forget that your holiday is sure to be a hollow
mockery; that your child will jam her finger in the railway carriage,
and scream to the end of the journey; that you will lose your luggage;
that the guard will notice your dog beneath the seat, and insist on its
being paid for; that you will be caught in a Scotch mist on the top of a
mountain, and be put on gruel for a fortnight; that your wife will fret
herself into a fever about the way the servant, who has been left at
home, is carrying on with her cousins, the milkman and the policeman;
and that you will be had up for trespassing. Yet, when you tell us you
are off to-morrow, we have never the sympathy to say, "Poor fellow, I
hope you'll pull through somehow." If it is an exhibition you go to
gape at, we never picture you dragging your weary legs from one
department to another, and wondering why your back is so sore. Should it
be the seaside, we talk heartlessly to you about the "briny," though we
must know, if we would stop to think, that if there is one holiday more
miserable than all the others, it is that spent at the seaside, when you
wander the weary beach and fling pebbles at the sea, and wonder how long
it will be till dinner time. Were we to come down to see you, we would
probably find you, not on the beach, but moving slowly through the
village, looking in at the one milliner's window, or laboriously reading
what the one grocer's labels say on the subject of pale ale, compressed
beef, or vinegar. There was never an object that called aloud for
sympathy more than you do, but you get not a jot of it. You should take
the first train home and go to bed for three days.
To enjoy your holiday in bed to the full, you should let it be vaguely
understood that there is something amiss with you. Don't go into
details, for they are not necessary; and, besides, you want to be dreamy
more or less, and the dreamy state is not consistent with a definite
ailment. The moment one takes to bed he gets sympathy. He may be
suffering from a tearing headache or a tooth that makes him cry out; but
if he goes about his business, or even flops in a chair, true sympathy
is denied him. Let him take to bed with one of those illnesses of which
he can say with accuracy that he is not quite certain what is the matter
with him, and his wife, for instance, will want to bathe his brow. She
must not be made too anxious. That would not only be cruel to her, but
it would wake you from the dreamy state. She must simply see that you
are "not yourself." Women have an idea that unless men are "not
themselves" they will not take to bed, and as a consequence your wife is
tenderly thoughtful of you. Every little while she will ask you if you
are feeling any better now, and you can reply, with the old regard for
truth, that you are "much about it." You may even (for your own
pleasure) talk of getting up now, when she will earnestly urge you to
stay in bed until you feel easier. You consent; indeed, you are ready to
do anything to please her.
The ideal holiday in bed does not require the presence of a ministering
angel in the room all day. You frequently prefer to be alone, and point
out to your wife that you cannot have her trifling with her health for
your sake, and so she must go out for a walk. She is reluctant, but
finally goes, protesting that you are the most unselfish of men, and
only too good for her. This leaves a pleasant aroma behind it, for even
when lying in bed, we like to feel that we are uncommonly fine fellows.
After she has gone you get up cautiously, and, walking stealthily to the
wardrobe, produce from the pocket of your great coat a good novel. A
holiday in bed must be arranged for beforehand. With a gleam in your eye
you slip back to bed, double your pillow to make it higher, and begin to
read. You have only got to the fourth page, when you make a horrible
discovery--namely, that the book is not cut. An experienced
holiday-maker would have had it cut the night before, but this is your
first real holiday, or perhaps you have been thoughtless. In any case
you have now matter to think of. You are torn in two different ways.
There is your coat on the floor with a knife in it, but you cannot reach
the coat without getting up again. Ought you to get the knife or to give
up reading? Perhaps it takes a quarter of an hour to decide this
question, and you decide it by discovering a third course. Being a sort
of an invalid, you have certain privileges which would be denied you if
you were merely sitting in a chair in the agonies of neuralgia. One of
the glorious privileges of a holiday in bed is that you are entitled to
cut books with your fingers. So you cut the novel in this way, and read
on.
Those who have never tried it may fancy that there is a lack of incident
in a holiday in bed. There could not be a more monstrous mistake. You
are in the middle of a chapter, when suddenly you hear a step upon the
stair. Your loving ears tell you that your wife has returned, and is
hastening to you. Now, what happens? The book disappears beneath the
pillow, and when she enters the room softly you are lying there with
your eyes shut. This is not merely incident; it is drama.
What happens next depends on circumstances. She says in a low voice--
"Are you feeling any easier now, John?"
No answer.
"Oh, I believe he is sleeping."
Then she steals from the room, and you begin to read again.
During a holiday in bed one never thinks, of course, of analyzing his
actions. If you had done so in this instance, you would have seen that
you pretended sleep because you had got to an exciting passage. You love
your wife, but, wife or no wife, you must see how the passage ends.
Possibly the little scene plays differently, as thus--
"John, are you feeling any easier now?"
No answer.
"Are you asleep?"
No answer.
"What a pity! I don't want to waken him, and yet the fowl will be
spoilt."
"Is that you back, Marion?"
"Yes, dear; I thought you were asleep."
"No, only thinking."
"You think too much, dear. I have cooked a chicken for you."
"I have no appetite."
"I'm so sorry, but I can give it to the children."
"Oh, as it's cooked, you may as well bring it up."
In that case the reason of your change of action is obvious. But why do
you not let your wife know that you have been reading? This is another
matter that you never reason about. Perhaps, it is because of your
craving for sympathy, and you fear that if you were seen enjoying a
novel the sympathy would go. Or, perhaps, it is that a holiday in bed is
never perfect without a secret. Monotony must be guarded against, and so
long as you keep the book to yourself your holiday in bed is a healthy
excitement. A stolen book (as we may call it) is like stolen fruit,
sweeter than what you can devour openly. The boy enjoys his stolen
apple, because at any moment he may have to slip it down the leg of his
trousers, and pretend that he has merely climbed the tree to enjoy the
scenery. You enjoy your book doubly because you feel that it is a
forbidden pleasure. Or, do you conceal the book from your wife lest she
should think that you are over-exerting yourself? She must not be made
anxious on your account. Ah, that is it.
People who pretend (for it must be pretence) that they enjoy their
holiday in the country, explain that the hills or the sea gave them such
an appetite. I could never myself feel the delight of being able to
manage an extra herring for breakfast, but it should be pointed out that
neither mountains nor oceans give you such an appetite as a holiday in
bed. What makes people eat more anywhere is that they have nothing else
to do, and in bed you have lots of time for meals. As for the quality of
the food supplied, there is no comparison. In the Highlands it is ham
and eggs all day till you sicken. At the seaside it is fish till the
bones stick in your mouth. But in bed--oh, there you get something worth
eating. You don't take three big meals a day, but twelve little ones,
and each time it is something different from the last. There are
delicacies for breakfast, for your four luncheons and your five dinners.
You explain to your wife that you have lost your appetite, and she
believes you, but at the same time she has the sense to hurry on your
dinner. At the clatter of dishes (for which you have been lying
listening) you raise your poor head, and say faintly:
"Really, Marion, I can't touch food."
"But this is nothing," she says, "only the wing of a partridge."
You take a side glance at it, and see that there is also the other wing
and the body and two legs. Your alarm thus dispelled, you say--
"I really can't."
"But, dear, it is so beautifully cooked."
"Yes; but I have no appetite."
"But try to take it, John, for my sake."
Then for her sake you say she can leave it on the chair, and perhaps you
will just taste it. As soon as she has gone you devour that partridge,
and when she comes back she has the sense to say--
"Why, you have scarcely eaten anything. What could you take for supper?"
You say you can take nothing, but if she likes she can cook a large
sole, only you won't be able to touch it.
"Poor dear!" she says, "your appetite has completely gone," and then she
rushes to the kitchen to cook the sole with her own hands. In
half-an-hour she steals into your room with it, and then you (who have
been wondering why she is such a time) start up protesting,
"I hope, Marion, this is nothing for me."
"Only the least little bit of a sole, dear."
"But I told you I could eat nothing."
"Well, this is nothing, it is so small."
You look again, and see with relief that it is a large sole.
"I would much rather that you took it away."
"But, dear----"
"I tell you I have no appetite."
"Of course I know that; but how can you hope to preserve your strength
if you eat so little? You have had nothing all day."
You glance at her face to see if she is in earnest, for you can remember
three breakfasts, four luncheons, two dinners, and sandwiches between;
but evidently she is not jesting. Then you yield.
"Oh, well, to keep my health up I may just put a fork into it."
"Do, dear; it will do you good, though you have no caring for it."
Take a holiday in bed, if only to discover what an angel your wife is.
There is only one thing to guard against. Never call it a holiday.
Continue not to feel sure what is wrong with you, and to talk vaguely of
getting up presently. Your wife will suggest calling in the doctor, but
pooh-pooh him. Be firm on that point. The chances are that he won't
understand your case.
LIFE IN A COUNTRY MANSE.
Up here among the heather (or nearly so) we are, in the opinion of
tourists, a mere hamlet, though to ourselves we are at least a village.
Englishmen call us a "clachan"--though, truth to tell, we are not sure
what that is. Just as Gulliver could not see the Liliputians without
stooping, these tourists may be looking for the clachan when they are in
the middle of it, and knocking at one of its doors to ask how far they
have yet to go till they reach it. To be honest, we are only five houses
in a row (including the smiddy), with a Free Church Manse and a few
farms here and there on the hillsides.
So far as the rest of the world is concerned, we are blotted out with
the first fall of snow. I suppose tourists scarcely give us a thought,
save when they are here. I have heard them admiring our glen in August,
and adding:
"But what a place it must be in winter!"
To this their friends reply, shivering:
"A hard life, indeed!"
And the conversation ends with the comment:
"Don't call it life; it is merely existence."
Well, it would be dull, no doubt, for tourists up here in January, say,
but I find the winter a pleasant change from summer. I am the minister,
and though my heart sank when I was "called," I rather enjoy the life
now. I am the man whom the tourists pity most.
"The others drawl through their lives," these tourists say, "to the
manner born; but think of an educated man who has seen life spending his
winters in such a place!"
"He can have no society."
"Let us hope the poor fellow is married."
"Oh, he is sure to be. But married or single, I am certain I would go
mad if I were in his shoes."
Their comparison is thrown away. I am strong and hale. I enjoy the
biting air, and I seldom carry an umbrella. I should perhaps go mad if I
were in the Englishmen's shoes, glued to a stool all day, and feeling my
road home through fog at night. And there is many an educated man who
envies me. Did not three times as many probationers apply for a hearing
when the church was vacant as could possibly be heard?
But how did I occupy my time? the English gentlemen would say, if they
had not forgotten me. What do the people do in winter?
No, I don't lie long in the mornings and doze on a sofa in the
afternoon, and go to bed at 9 o'clock. When I was at college, where
there is so much "life," I breakfasted frequently at ten; but here,
where time must (they say) hang heavy on my hands, I am up at seven.
Though I am not a married man, no one has said openly that I am insane.
Janet, my housekeeper and servant, has my breakfast of porridge and tea
and ham ready by half-past seven sharp. You see the mornings are keen,
and so, as I have no bed-room fire nor hot water, I dress much more
quickly than I dressed at college. Six minutes I give myself, then Janet
and I have prayers, and then follows my breakfast. What an appetite I
have! I am amazed to recall the student days, when I "could not look at
porridge," and thought a half-penny roll sufficient for two of us.
Dreary pleasure, you say, breakfasting alone in a half-furnished house,
with the snow lying some feet deep outside and still monotonously
falling. Do I forget the sound of my own voice between Monday and
Saturday? I should think not. Nor do I forget Janet's voice. I have read
somewhere that the Scotch are a very taciturn race, but Janet is far
more Scotch than the haggis that is passed around at some London
dinners, and Janet is not a silent woman. The difficulty with some
servants is to get them to answer your summons, but my difficulty with
Janet is to get her back to the kitchen. Her favorite position is at the
door, which she keeps half open. One of her feet she twists round it,
and there she stands, half out of the room and half in it. She has a
good deal of gossip to tell me about those five houses that lie low, two
hundred yards from the manse, and it must be admitted that I listen. Why
not? If one is interested in people he must gossip about them. You, in
London, may not care in the least who your next door neighbor is, but
you gossip about your brothers and sisters and aunts. Well, my people
are as familiar to me as your brothers are to you, and, therefore, I
say, "Ah, indeed," when told that the smith is busy with the wheel of a
certain farmer's cart, and "Dear me, is that so?" when Janet explains
that William, the ploughman, has got Meggy, his wife, to cut his hair.
Meggy has cut my own hair. She puts a bowl on my head and clips away
everything that it does not cover. So I would miss Janet if she were
gone, and her tongue is as enlivening as a strong ticking clock. No
doubt there are times when, if I were not a minister, I might fling
something soft at her. She shows to least advantage when I have
visitors, and even in winter I have a man to dinner now and again. Then
I realize that Janet does not know her place. While we are dining she
hovers in the vicinity. If she is not pretending to put the room to
rights, she is in her fortified position at the door; and if she is not
at the door she is immediately behind it. Her passion is to help in the
conversation. As she brings in the potatoes she answers the last remark
my guest addressed to me, and if I am too quick for her she explains
away my answer, or modifies it, or signifies her approval of it. Then I
try to be dignified and to show Janet her place. If I catch her eye I
frown, but such opportunities are rare, for it is the guest on whom she
concentrates herself. She even tells him, in my presence, little things
about myself which I would prefer to keep to myself. The impression
conveyed by her is that I confide everything to her. When my guest
remarks that I am becoming a hardened bachelor, and I hint that it is
because the ladies do not give me a chance, Janet breaks in with--
"Oh, deed it's a wonder he wasn't married long since, but the one he
wanted wouldn't have him, and the ones that want him he won't take. He's
an ill man to please."
"Ah, Janet," the guest may say (for he enjoys her interference more than
I do), "you make him so comfortable that you spoil him."
"Maybe," says Janet, "but it took me years to learn how to manage him."
"Does he need to be managed?"
"I never knew a man that didna."
Then they get Janet to tell them all my little "tantrums" (as she calls
them), and she holds forth on my habit of mislaying my hat and then
blaming her, or on how I hate rice pudding, or on the way I have worn
the carpet by walking up and down the floor when I would be more
comfortable in a chair. Now and again I have wound myself up to the
point of reproving Janet when the guest had gone, but the result is that
she tells her select friends how "quick in the temper" I am. So Janet
must remain as she has grown and it is gratifying to me (though don't
let on) to know that she turns up her nose at every other minister who
preaches in my church. Janet is always afraid when I go off for a
holiday that the congregations in the big towns will "snap me up." It is
pleasant to feel that she has this opinion of me, though I know that the
large congregations do not share it.
Who are my winter visitors? The chief of them is the doctor. We have no
doctor, of course, up here, and this one has to come twelve miles to us.
He is rather melancholy when we send for him; but he wastes no time in
coming, though he may not have had his clothes off for twenty-four
hours, and is well aware that we cannot pay big fees. Several times he
has had to remain with me all night, and once he was snowed up here for
a week. At times, too, he drives so far on his way to us and then has to
turn back because the gig sticks on the heavy roads. He is only a doctor
in a small country town, but I am elated when I see him, for he can tell
me whether the Government is still in power. Then I have the school
inspector once a year. The school inspector is always threatening to
change the date of inspection to summer, but he takes the town from
which the doctor comes in early spring, and finds it convenient to come
from there to here. Early spring is often winter with us, so that the
school inspector comes when there is usually snow on the ground or
threatening. The school is a mile away at another "clachan," but the
inspector dines with me, and so does the schoolmaster. On these
occasions the schoolmaster is not such good company as at other times,
for he is anxious about his passes, and explains (as I think) more than
is necessary that regular attendance is out of the question in a place
like this. The inspector's visit is the time of my great annual
political debate, for the doctor calls politics "fudge." The inspector
and I are on different sides, however, and we go at each other hammer
and tongs, while the schoolmaster signs to me with his foot not to anger
the inspector.
Of course, outsiders will look incredulous when I assure them that a
good deal of time is passed in preparing my sermons. I have only one
Sabbath service, but two sermons, the one beginning as soon as the
other is finished. In such a little church, you will say they must be
easily pleased; but they are not. Some of them tramp long distances to
church in weather that would keep you, reader, in the house, though your
church is round the corner and there is pavement all the way to it. I
can preach old sermons? Indeed I cannot. Many of my hearers adjourn to
one of the five houses when the service is over, and there I am picked
pretty clean. They would detect an old sermon at once, and resent it. I
do not "talk" to them from the pulpit. I write my sermons in the manse,
and though I use "paper," the less I use it the better they are pleased.
The visits of the doctor are pleasant to me in one sense, but painful in
others, for I need not say that when he is called I am required too. To
wade through miles of snow is no great hardship to those who are
accustomed to it; but the heavy heart comes when one of my people is
seriously ill. Up here we have few slight illnesses. The doctor cannot
be summoned to attend them, and we usually "fight away" until the malady
has a heavy hold. Then the doctor comes, and though we are so scattered,
his judgment is soon known all through the glens. When the tourists
come back in summer they will not see all the "natives" of the year
before.
It is said by those who know nothing of our lives that we have no social
events worth speaking of, and no amusements. This is what ignorance
brings outsiders to. I had a marriage last week that was probably more
exciting than many of your grand affairs in London. And as for
amusements, you should see us gathered together in the smiddy, and
sometimes in the school-house. But I must break off here for the reason
that I have used up all my spare sermon paper--a serious matter. I shall
send the editor something about our social gatherings presently, for he
says he wants it. Janet, I may add, has discovered that this is not a
sermon and is very curious about it.
LIFE IN A COUNTRY MANSE.
A WEDDING IN A SMIDDY.
I promised to take the world at large into my confidence on the subject
of our wedding at the smiddy. You in London, no doubt, dress more
gorgeously for marriages than we do--though we can present a fine show
of color--and you do not make your own wedding-cake, as Lizzie did. But
what is your excitement to ours? I suppose you have many scores of
marriages for our one, but you only know of those from the newspapers.
"At so-and-so, by the Rev. Mr. Such-a-one, John to Elizabeth, eldest
daughter of Thomas." That is all you know of the couple who were married
round the corner, and therefore, I say, a hundred such weddings are less
eventful in your community than one wedding in ours.
Lizzie is off to Southampton with her husband. As the carriage drove off
behind two horses that could with difficulty pull it through the snow,
Janet suddenly appeared at my elbow and remarked:
"Well, well, she has him now, and may she have her joy of him."
"Ah, Janet," I said, "you see you were wrong. You said he would never
come for her."
"No, no," answered Janet. "I just said Lizzie made too sure about him,
seeing as he was at the other side of the world. These sailors are
scarce to be trusted."
"But you see this one has turned up a trump."
"That remains to be seen. Anybody that's single can marry a woman, but
it's no so easy to keep her comfortable."
I suppose Janet is really glad that the sailor did turn up and claim
Lizzie, but she is annoyed in a way too. The fact is that Janet was
skeptical about the sailor. I never saw Janet reading anything but the
_Free Church Monthly_, yet she must have obtained her wide knowledge of
sailors from books. She considers them very bad characters, but is too
shrewd to give her reasons.
"We all ken what sailors are," is her dark way of denouncing those who
go down to the sea in ships, and then she shakes her head and purses up
her mouth as if she could tell things about sailors that would make our
hair rise.
I think it was in Glasgow that Lizzie met the sailor--three years ago.
She had gone there to be a servant, but the size of the place (according
to her father) frightened her, and in a few months she was back at the
clachan. We were all quite excited to see her again in the church, and
the general impression was that Glasgow had "made her a deal more
lady-like." In Janet's opinion she was just a little too lady-like to be
natural.
In a week's time there was a wild rumor through the glen that Lizzie was
to be married.
"Not she," said Janet, uneasily.
Soon, however, Janet had to admit that there was truth in the story, for
"the way Lizzie wandered up the road looking for the post showed she had
a man on her mind."
Lizzie, I think, wanted to keep her wonderful secret to herself, but
that could not be done.
"I canna sleep at nights for wondering who Lizzie is to get," Janet
admitted to me. So in order to preserve her health Janet studied the
affair, reflected on the kind of people Lizzie was likely to meet in
Glasgow, asked Lizzie to the manse to tea (with no result), and then
asked Lizzie's mother (victory). Lizzie was to be married to a sailor.
"I'm cheated," said Janet, "if she ever sets eyes on him again. Oh, we
all ken what sailors are."
You must not think Janet too spiteful. Marriages were always too much
for her, but after the wedding is over she becomes good-natured again.
She is a strange mixture, and, I rather think, very romantic, despite
her cynical talk.
Well, I confess now, that for a time I was somewhat afraid of Lizzie's
sailor myself. His letters became few in number, and often I saw Lizzie
with red eyes after the post had passed. She had too much work to do to
allow her to mope, but she became unhappy and showed a want of spirit
that alarmed her father, who liked to shout at his relatives and have
them shout back at him.
"I wish she had never set eyes on that sailor," he said to me one day
when Lizzie was troubling him.
"She could have had William Simpson," her mother said to Janet.
"I question that," said Janet, in repeating the remark to me.
But though all the clachan shook its head at the sailor, and repeated
Janet's aphorism about sailors as a class, Lizzie refused to believe
her lover untrue.
"The only way to get her to flare up at me," her father said, "is to say
a word against her lad. She will not stand that."
And, after all, we were wrong and Lizzie was right. In the beginning of
the winter Janet walked into my study and parlor (she never knocks) and
said:
"He's come!"
"Who?" I asked.
"The sailor. Lizzie's sailor. It's a perfect disgrace."
"Hoots, Janet, it's the very reverse. I'm delighted; and so, I suppose,
are you in your heart."
"I'm not grudging her the man if she wants him," said Janet, flinging up
her head, "but the disgrace is in the public way he marched past me with
his arm round her. It affronted me."
Janet gave me the details. She had been to a farm for the milk and
passed Lizzie, who had wandered out to meet the post as usual.
"I've no letter for ye, Lizzie," the post said, and Lizzie sighed.
"No, my lass," the post continued, "but I've something better."
Lizzie was wondering what it could be, when a man jumped out from
behind a hedge, at the sight of whom Lizzie screamed with joy. It was
her sailor.
"I would never have let on I was so fond of him," said Janet.
"But did he not seem fond of her?" I asked.
"That was the disgrace," said Janet. "He marched off to her father's
house with his arm around her; yes, passed me and a wheen other folk,
and looked as if he neither kent nor cared how public he was making
himself. She did not care either."
I addressed some remarks to Janet on the subject of meddling with other
people's affairs, pointing out that she was now half an hour late with
my tea; but I, too, was interested to see the sailor. I shall never
forget what a change had come over Lizzie when I saw her next. The life
was back in her face, she bustled about the house as busy as a bee, and
her walk was springy.
"This is him," she said to me, and then the sailor came forward and
grinned. He was usually grinning when I saw him, but he had an honest,
open face, if a very youthful one.
The sailor stayed on at the clachan till the marriage, and continued to
scandalize Janet by strutting "past the very manse gate" with his arm
round the happy Lizzie.
"He has no notion of the solemnity of marriage," Janet informed me, "or
he would look less jolly. I would not like a man that joked about his
marriage."
The sailor undoubtedly did joke. He seemed to look on the coming event
as the most comical affair in the world's history, and when he spoke of
it he slapped his knees and roared. But there was daily fresh evidence
that he was devoted to Lizzie.
The wedding took place in the smiddy, because it is a big place, and all
the glen was invited. Lizzie would have had the company comparatively
select, but the sailor asked every one to come whom he fell in with, and
he had few refusals. He was wonderfully "flush" of money, too, and had
not Lizzie taken control of it, would have given it all away before the
marriage took place.
"It's a mercy Lizzie kens the worth of a bawbee," her mother said, "for
he would scatter his siller among the very bairns as if it was corn and
he was feeding hens."
All the chairs in the five houses were not sufficient to seat the
guests, but the smith is a handy man, and he made forms by crossing
planks on tubs. The smiddy was an amazing sight, lit up with two big
lamps, and the bride, let me inform those who tend to scoff, was dressed
in white. As for the sailor, we have perhaps never had so showily
dressed a gentleman in our parts. For this occasion he discarded his
seafaring "rig out" (as he called it), and appeared resplendent in a
black frock coat (tight at the neck), a light blue waistcoat (richly
ornamented), and gray trousers with a green stripe. His boots were new
and so genteel that as the evening wore on he had to kick them off and
dance in his stocking soles.
Janet tells me that Lizzie had gone through the ceremony in private with
her sailor a number of times, so that he might make no mistake. The
smith, asked to take my place at these rehearsals, declined on the
ground that he forgot how the knot was tied: but his wife had a better
memory, and I understand that she even mimicked me--for which I must
take her to task one of these days.
However, despite all these precautions, the sailor was a little
demonstrative during the ceremony, and slipped his arm around the bride
"to steady her." Janet wonders that Lizzie did not fling his arm from
her, but Lizzie was too nervous now to know what her swain was about.
Then came the supper and the songs and the speeches. The tourists who
picture us shivering, silent and depressed all through the winter should
have been in the smiddy that night.
I proposed the health of the young couple, and when I called Lizzie by
her new name, "Mrs. Fairweather," the sailor flung back his head and
roared with glee till he choked, and Lizzie's first duty as a wife was
to hit him hard between the shoulder blades. When he was sufficiently
composed to reply, he rose to his feet and grinned round the room.
"Mrs. Fairweather," he cried in an ecstacy of delight, and again choked.
The smith induced him to make another attempt, and this time he got as
far as "Ladies and gentlemen, me and my wife----" when the speech ended
prematurely in resounding chuckles. The last we saw of him, when the
carriage drove away, he was still grinning; but that, as he explained,
was because "he had got Lizzie at last." "You'll be a good husband to
her, I hope," I said.
"Will I not," he cried, and his arm went round his wife again.
A POWERFUL DRUG.
(NO HOUSEHOLD SHOULD BE WITHOUT IT.)
All respectable chemists, Montgomery assures me, keep the cio-root. That
is the name of the drug, and Montgomery is the man who ought to write
its testimonials. This is a testimonial to the efficacy of the cio-root,
and I write it the more willingly, because, until the case of Montgomery
cropped up, I had no faith in patent medicines. Seeing, however, is,
they say, believing; and I have seen what the cio-root did for
Montgomery. I can well believe now that it can do anything, from
removing grease-spots to making your child cry out in the night.
Montgomery, who was married years ago, is subject to headaches, and
formerly his only way of treating them was to lie in bed and read a
light novel. By the time the novel was finished, so, as a rule, was the
headache. This treatment rather interfered with his work, however, and
he tried various medicines which were guaranteed to cure rapidly. None
of them had the least result, until one day, some two months ago, good
fortune made him run against an old friend in Chambers street.
Montgomery having a headache, mentioned it, and his friend asked him if
he had tried the cio-root. The name even was unfamiliar to Montgomery,
but his friend spoke so enthusiastically of it that the headachy man
took a note of it. He was told that it had never been known to fail, and
the particular merit of it was that it drove the headache away in five
minutes. The proper dose to take was half an inch of the root, which was
to be sucked and eventually swallowed. Montgomery tried several chemists
in vain, for they had not heard of it, but at last he got it on George
IV. Bridge. He had so often carried home in triumph a "certain cure,"
which was subsequently flung out at the window in disgust, that his wife
shook her head at the cio-root, and advised him not to be too hopeful.
However, the cio-root surpassed the fondest expectations. It completely
cured Montgomery in less than the five minutes. Several times he tried
it, and always with the same triumphant result. Having at last got a
drug to make an idol of, it is not perhaps to be wondered at that
Montgomery was full of gratitude. He kept a three pound tin of the
cio-root on his library-table, and the moment he felt a headache coming
on he said, "Excuse me for one moment," and bit off half an inch of
cio-root.
The headaches never had a chance. It was, therefore, natural, though
none the less annoying, that his one topic of conversation should become
the properties of this remarkable drug. You would drop in on him,
glowing over the prospect of a delightful two hours' wrangle over the
crofter question, but he pushed the subject away with a wave of his
hand, and begged to introduce to our notice the cio-root. Sitting there
smoking, his somewhat dull countenance would suddenly light up as his
eyes came to rest on the three-pound tin. He was always advising us to
try the cio-root, and when we said we did not have a headache he got
sulky. The first thing he asked us when we met was whether we had a
headache, and often he clipped off an inch or two of the cio-root and
gave it us in a piece of paper, so that a headache might not take us
unawares. I believe he rather enjoyed waking with a headache, for he
knew that it would not have a chance. If his wife had been a jealous
woman, she would not have liked the way he talked of the cio-root.
Some of us did try the drug, either to please him or because we were
really curious about it. Whatever the reason, none of us, I think, were
prejudiced. We tested it on its merits, and came unanimously to the
conclusion that they were negative. The cio-root did us no harm. The
taste was what one may imagine to be the taste of the root of any rotten
tree dipped in tar, which was subsequently allowed to dry. As we were
all of one mind on the subject, we insisted with Montgomery that the
cio-root was a fraud. Frequently we had such altercations with him on
the subject that we parted in sneers, and ultimately we said that it
would be best not to goad him too far; so we arranged merely to chaff
him about his faith in the root, and never went farther than insisting,
in a pleasant way, that he was cured, not by the cio-root, but by his
believing in it. Montgomery rejected this theory with indignation, but
we stuck to it and never doubted it. Events, nevertheless, will show you
that Montgomery was right and that we were wrong.
The triumph of cio-root came as recently as yesterday. Montgomery, his
wife, and myself, had arranged to go into Glasgow for the day. I called
for them in the forenoon and had to wait, as Montgomery had gone along
to the office to see if there were any letters. He arrived soon after
me, saying that he had a headache, but saying it in a cheery way, for he
knew that the root was in the next room. He disappeared into the library
to nibble half an inch of the cio-root, and shortly afterwards we set
off. The headache had been dispelled as usual. In the train he and I had
another argument about the one great drug, and he ridiculed my notion
about its being faith that drove his headache away. I may hurry over the
next two hours, up to the time when we wandered into Buchanan street.
There Montgomery met a friend, to whom he introduced me. The gentleman
was in a hurry, so we only spoke for a moment, but after he had left us
he turned back.
"Montgomery," he said, "do you remember that day I met you in Chambers
street, Edinburgh?"
"I have good reason for remembering the occasion," said Montgomery,
meaning to begin the story of his wonderful cure; but his friend who had
to catch a 'bus, cut him short.
"I told you at that time," he said, "about a new drug called the
cio-root, which had a great reputation for curing headaches."
"Yes," said Montgomery; "I always wanted to thank you----"
His friend, however, broke in again--
"I have been troubled in my mind since then," he said, "because I was
told afterwards that I had made a mistake about the proper dose. If you
try the cio-root, don't take half an inch, as I recommended, but quarter
of an inch. Don't forget. It is of vital importance."
Then he jumped into his 'bus, but I called after him, "What would be the
effect of half an inch?"
"Certain death!" he shouted back, and was gone. I turned to look at
Montgomery and his wife. She let her umbrella fall and he had turned
white. "Of course, there is nothing to be alarmed about," I said, in a
reassuring way. "Montgomery has taken half an inch scores of times; you
say it always cured you."
"Yes, yes," Montgomery answered; but his voice sounded hollow.
Up to this point the snow had kept off, but now it began to fall in a
soaking drizzle. If you are superstitious you can take this as an omen.
For the rest of the day, certainly, we had a miserable time of it. I had
to do all the talking, and while I laughed and jested, I noticed that
Mrs. Montgomery was looking anxiously from time to time at her husband.
She was afraid to ask him if he felt unwell, and he kept up, not wanting
to alarm her. But he walked like a man who knew that he had come to his
last page. At my suggestion we went to the Enoch's Station Hotel to have
dinner. I had dinner, Mrs. Montgomery pretended to have dinner, but
Montgomery himself did not even make the pretense. He sat with his
elbows on the table and his face buried in his hands. At last he said
with a groan that he was feeling very ill. He looked so doleful that his
wife began to cry.
Montgomery admitted that he blamed the cio-root for his sufferings. He
had taken an overdose of it, he said, tragically, and must abide the
consequences. I could have shaken him, for reasoning was quite flung
away on him. Of course, I repeated what I had said previously about an
overdose having done him no harm before, but he only shook his head
sadly. I said that his behavior now proved my contention that he only
believed in the cio-root because he was told that it had wonderful
properties; otherwise he would have laughed at what his friend had just
told him. Undoubtedly, I said, his sufferings to-day were purely
imaginary. Montgomery did not have sufficient spirits to argue with me,
but he murmured in a die-away voice that he had felt strange symptoms
ever since we set out from Edinburgh. Now, this was as absurd as
anything in Euclid, for he had been boasting of the wonderful cure the
drug had effected again most of the way between Edinburgh and Glasgow.
He insisted that he had a splitting headache, and that he was very sick.
In the end, as his wife was now in a frenzy, I sent out for a doctor.
The doctor came, said "yes" and "quite so" to himself, and pronounced
Montgomery feverish. That he was feverish by this time, I do not
question. He had worked himself into a fever. There was some talk of
putting him to bed in the hotel, but he insisted on going home. Though
he did not put it so plainly, he gave us to understand that he wanted to
die in his own bed.