Both my grandmothers were very religious, one more ostentatiously than
the other. When a young child I distinguished them by calling one the
grandmother who said prayers, and the other the grandmother who made
cakes. I had a strong preference for the one who made cakes. Her plain
fruit cake, undefiled by messy icing of chocolate or sugar, was a
production worthy of remembrance.
My great-grandfather was to me just an old man, very old and blind, who
sat by the fire all day long, and spoke little, and then in a harsh
cold voice, with a strong Scotch accent. He lived in a large house on a
dingy, but a highly respectable street, with four old daughters and one
son, who I discovered did not love him very much.
Visiting my great-grandfather’s house was like passing suddenly into
old-fashioned long-passed times. My ancient great-aunts were very prim
and very properly made-up ladies, looking as much alike and as smooth
and shiny as four silk hats just out of bandboxes.
“Here’s Jack,” Aunt Elizabeth would say when I arrived, and I would be
gently pushed towards my great-grandfather who sat in the hall in a big
high-backed arm-chair, combing his long white beard with his fingers.
“Weel, laddie?” the old fellow would growl, and he would reach out to
feel me and pat my head with his large hand.
My great-aunts were very proud of their descent, which they claimed
from the Duke of Argyle. I never was interested enough to ask how
far they had descended from the noble duke. They helped out a meagre
fortune by keeping a genteel dressmaking establishment patronised by a
few select people. In their house I played Blind Man’s Buff, Puss in
the Corner, and other dead and gone games; drank raspberry vinegar and
ate plum cake.
My great-uncle was a curiosity. He did not drink, smoke nor work. He
was a little wizened, dried-up fellow with a much wrinkled face the
colour of a potato. He lived on his sisters, who made everything he
wore but his hat and boots, and his clothes were certainly remarkable.
After his death I heard my father say to some card-playing cronies, “We
planted Uncle Allan to-day.” Everybody laughed, but I thought it was
hard-hearted. Nothing about my great-uncle seemed, however, to matter,
or to be serious, not even his death. He inspired neither dislike nor
fondness. He was just one of those who do not count—a human vegetable.
A pack of cards was a thing never seen in the houses of my
great-grandfather or either of my grandmothers, but in our house they
were the main source of amusement. Father could not see the harm in
cards that the older branches of our family saw. My earliest memories
are associated with cards. Father played nearly nightly except on
Sundays. Every one who came to our house was a card-player. The
neighbours with whom we associated were card players. Possibly cards
are a safe amusement for a certain type of character. They are like
everything else—used with discretion they are good; without discretion,
and in league with drink and gambling, they are bad.
Thus it came about quite naturally that while still young I learned
many games of cards. If father and I were left alone together of an
evening we played cribbage. If we were three—mother, he and I—we played
bezique. If we were four it was whist. If others dropped in, or were
invited, we played draw-poker for a small stake. Draw-poker never got
disreputable or blood-thirsty in our house, as a very low stake was the
rule.
Through cards I came to distrust my father’s judgment. He played games
of cards the way he felt, sometimes playing with rare skill, at other
times madly and feverishly, without thought or judgment. He was a man
of impulse. If I had wholly distrusted his wisdom, instead of allowing
myself to be dominated by his high-handedness, his life and mine
might have been very different. But I was brought up in the days when
authority of whatever kind was worshipped. To-day authority must “show
cause.” I see now that my father played the game of life the same as
he played cards—by impulse, by intuition. I was taught to believe that
what he said was sound and wise; and if I continued in this belief for
many years, it is not to be wondered at. I had better card-sense than
he; but it does not follow that my sense was better in other things.