"Mother," said Ann one evening, "do you realise that we are not getting
on at all well with your _Life_? Marget has developed this passion for
coming in and recalling absurd things--last night she wasted the whole
evening with the tale of her grandfather's encounter with a bull; racy,
I admit, but not relevant, and the night before she set me recalling
mad escapades of our childhood, and I didn't write a word. Where we
are, I don't know, but there are only three of us born--Mark and me and
Robbie. Jim has got to be worked in somewhere--and Rosamund. We were
all at Etterick recovering from whooping-cough when Jim was born, so I
don't remember much about him, but Rosamund's coming was a wonderful
event. She was my birthday present when I was eight."
"In some ways Jim was the nicest of the babies," Mrs. Douglas said.
"He was so pretty and sweet-tempered--quite a show child. Whenever we
said, 'Sing, Jim,' he dropped on to the floor and began 'Lord, a little
band and lowly,' and he was no age at all."
Ann laughed a sceptical laugh. "He ceased at an early age his efforts
to entertain; he has no use for company now. I suppose it might be a
reaction from his precocious childhood. But he still has the good
nature."
"Indeed he has," said Jim's mother fervently. "The Fife people had a
saying 'born for a blessing,' and Jim has been that. Rosamund"--she
paused for a moment, then continued--"Rosamund was the most lovely
child I ever saw. No, it wasn't because I was her mother, unprejudiced
people said the same. I think, perhaps, it was the happiest time in my
life, those weeks after Rosamund came. Not that I hadn't always been
happy, but the years before had been rather a mêlée. Now I had found
my feet, more or less, and church work and housekeeping and baby
rearing no longer appalled me. It was in March she was born. We had
got all the spring cleaning done well beforehand, and the Deacons'
Court had papered and painted the stairs and lobbies, and we had
afforded ourselves new stair and landing carpets, and the house was as
fresh as it's possible for a house to be. I lay there with my baby, so
utterly contented, listening to the voices of you and the boys playing
in the garden in the spring sunlight, with pleasant thoughts going
through my mind about my healthy, happy children and a smooth running
church, and thanking God for the best man that ever woman had. And all
the kind people came flocking to see the new baby. Mrs. Dewar came
with a dainty frock made by herself and an armful of books and
magazines. These are George's choosing,' she said, 'and he says you
will enjoy them all. I think myself they look rather dull, so I've
brought you one of Annie Swan's--she's _capital_ for a confinement.'
And Mrs. Peat sat by the fire with Rosamund on her knee and said, 'Eh,
my dear, she's a beauty,' and blessed her. And you children came
running in with celandines from the Den, and grubby treasures which you
tried to thrust into the baby's tiny hand--I often look back on those
days. It seems to me that my cup of happiness must have been lipping
over. Rosamund grew like a flower. There was always something special
about her, and we felt it from the first. It wasn't only her beauty,
it was something fine, aloof. You remember her, Ann?"
"Yes, I remember her, Mother. She was always different, even at the
beginning she wasn't red and puckered and squirming like most babies,
but faintly pink like a rose. Father worshipped her. Of course, you
know that you made far more of her than of any of the rest of us, and
we were glad and willing that it should be so. We were never rough
with her. She never lived the tumbled puppy-like life that I lived as
a child."
Mrs. Douglas nodded. Presently she said:
"You had a happy childhood, Ann?"
"Hadn't we just? No children ever had a happier; we were so free.
When I see children dragging along dreary daily walks with nurses, I do
pity them. We hated being taken walks by Ellie Robbie, and generally
ran away. We used to meet the Johnstons with their Ellen, and then we
big ones dashed off together on business of our own, leaving the poor
nurses tethered to the prams. We were marauders of the worst type.
Having always a great hunger for sweets and being always destitute of
money, we had to devise schemes for getting them. In Nether Street
there stood a little sweetie shop owned by one Archibald Forbes, a
good-natured man who had once (in an evil moment for himself) given us
a few sweeties for nothing. With the awful pertinacity of children we
went back continually in the hope that he might do it again! (What you
and Father would have thought if you had seen us, I know not!)
Sometimes he ordered us away, but, when in a more forthcoming mood, he
would make us say recitations to him, and then reward us. He must have
been a very patient man, Mr. Archibald Forbes, for I can see him, his
spectacles on the end of his nose, and his bushy eyebrows pulled down,
standing behind his counter, listening without a movement to Mark
relentlessly getting through 'The scene was changed'--you know that
thing about Mary Queen of Scots?"
"Indeed I do. If Mark was asked to recite when Mrs. Goskirk was
present, and she heard him begin, 'The scene was changed,' she gave a
resigned sigh and took up her knitting; and there was another about
Henry of Navarre that was almost as bad. The things you did were short
and harmless."
"Oh, quite," said Ann. "There was one about a little girl called
Fanny, a child for whom we had a deep distaste. She had a dream about
being in heaven, I remember:
'I thought to see Papa's estate
But oh! 'twas far too small, Mamma;
The whole wide world was not so big
As William's cricket ball, Mamma.'
And she finished:
'Your pretty Fanny woke, Mamma,
And lo! 'twas but a dream.'
We thought the said Fanny was an insufferably sidey child, first of all
for mentioning 'Papa's estate,' then for saying 'And lo!' and, worst of
all, for alluding to herself as 'pretty Fanny'--that was beyond pardon.
Talking about money, someone once gave me a sixpence, which I took,
contrary to rule--we weren't allowed to take money. Feeling guilty, I
ran into a little shop in the Watery Wynd, a fish shop that sold fruit,
and demanded sixpenny-worth of pears. Ellie Robbie was hard behind,
so, with great presence of mind, I said, 'Give me one just now and I'll
get the rest another time.' That sixpennyworth of pears was a regular
widow's cruse to me. For weeks I called nearly every day at that shop
to demand a pear due to me, until they said if I came again they would
tell my father! We can't have had any decent pride about us, for I
don't think we minded being snubbed. When we ran away from Ellie
Robbie the harbour was generally our destination--a fascinating place
where Norwegian sailors strolled about in a friendly way and could
sometimes be persuaded to let us go on board their ships, where they
gave us hot coffee out of gaily painted bowls. The harbour was the
only romantic thing in Kirkcaple. Time meant nothing to us in those
days, and, so far as we were concerned, the King still sat in
Dunfermline town calling for a 'skeely skipper' to sail his ship to
'Norroway ower the faem'; and many an hour we stood looking out to sea
and watching for the gallant ship 'that never mair cam' hame.' Next to
the harbour we loved the coal-pit, and felt that we were indeed greatly
blessed to have one so near the house. There was no romance about a
coal-pit (except the romance that brings in the nine-fifteen); but
there were glorious opportunities for getting thoroughly dirty. We had
many friends among the miners, and they gave us rides on trolleys, and
helped us to make seesaws, and admitted us into lovely little outhouses
containing, among other treasures, the yellow grease that trains are
greased with. And there was the Hyacinth Den only a stone's-throw from
our own door, and the bleach-field beyond, and beyond that again the
Wild Wood. And our own Manse garden was not to be despised, for did it
not look into a field owned by the Huttons--a clan as wild and lawless
as our own, and many a battle took place between us. They had a friend
known to us as 'Wild Scott of the Huttons,' a truly great and tireless
fighter, and if he happened to be visiting them we never knew when a
head would pop up over the wall where the big pear tree grew, and
challenge us to mortal combat. Did you hear that Mark came across a
man in France, tremendously decorated and of high rank, who turned out
to be our old enemy 'Wild Scott of the Huttons'? Besides the permanent
feud with the Huttons, we had many small vendettas with boys from the
town, who stoned Mark on Sundays because they didn't like his clothes."
Mrs. Douglas laid down her stocking, and said in a bewildered tone:
"I never could understand why you were so pugnacious. You were a
dreadfully bad example to the other children in the place. They say
that ministers' children are generally worse than other people's--on
the principle, I suppose, that 'shoemakers' bairns are aye ill shod,'
but I never saw children more naturally bad than you were--well, not
bad, perhaps, but wild and mischievous to a degree. Your father
sometimes said that no one could doubt the theory of original sin after
seeing our family. Alison sometimes comes to me in her wheedling way
and says, 'Gran, do tell me about your bad children,' and I have to
tell her of the time when you celebrated the Queen's birthday at the
coal-pit by setting fire to a lot of valuable wood and nearly burned
the whole place, and the day when we lost you and found you all in the
Panny Pond--literally 'in' it you were, for you had made a raft and
sunk with it into the soft, black mud."
"Yes," said Ann, "I was always sorry after that for 'The Girl who trod
on a Loaf,' for I knew the dreadfulness of sinking down, down."
"I think my dear Robbie was the worst of you all. You others showed
faint signs of improvement, but he never deviated into good behaviour.
He was what is known in Priorsford as 'a notorious ill callant,' and in
Fife as 'an awfu' steerin' bairn.' When I went away for a day or two I
had always to take him with me, for I knew if I left him at home it
would be sheer 'battleation,' and yet he had the tenderest heart among
you, and Rosamund said, 'Robbie's the one who has never once been cross
to me.' I remember the first time I took him to church. He disliked
the look of the woman who sat in front, a prim lady, and he suddenly
tilted her bonnet over her eyes. Then he shouted to a well-behaved
child in the next seat, 'Bad boy make a face at me,' and before I could
stop him, hurled his shoe at him; and he announced at the top of his
voice, 'Mark and Ann's away to Etterick, but I don't care a wee, wee
button,' and had then to be removed. 'Wheep him,' Mrs. Beaton used to
counsel; but Mrs. Peat always said 'Robbie's a fine laddie.'"
Ann nodded. "So he was, always. Though he was so turbulent and noisy
he was so uncunning you couldn't but think nobly of the soul. Mark and
I thought of the mischievous things to do, and Robbie threw himself
into them so whole-heartedly that generally he was the one caught and
blamed. The rest of us were better at wriggling out of things. Father
was never hard on us unless we cheated or told lies. He wasn't even
angry when the policeman complained of us--do you remember the one, an
elder in our church, who said in despair to his wife, 'I'll hae to jail
thae bairns and leave the kirk'? One of the few times I ever saw
Father really angry was when he was holding a class for young
communicants, and we crept into the cubby-hole under the stairs, where
the meter was, and _turned off the gas_. Father emerged from the study
like a lion, and caught poor Jim, who had loitered. The rest of us had
gained the attics and were in hiding. It must have been a great day
for the young communicants."
"Ann! It was a shocking thing to do; it would have roused the
mildest-mannered man."
"Father was very good-natured," said Ann, kneeling on the rug to put a
log on the fire; "but it was never safe to presume too much on his
mildness. He was subject to sudden and incomprehensible rages. One
day I innocently remarked that somebody had a 'polly' arm. I didn't
know that I meant a paralysed arm; I was only repeating what I had
heard others say, but Father grabbed me suddenly and said, 'You
wretched child! Where do you pick up those abominable expressions? Go
to the nursery.' I went weeping, feeling bitterly the injustice with
which I had been treated. But for every once that Father made us cry,
a hundred times he filled our mouths with laughter. All our best games
were invented by him. Whenever he put his head round the nursery door,
we knew we were going to have good times. There was a glorious game
about India, in which the nursery became a trackless jungle, and Father
was an elephant with a pair of bellows for a trunk. Sometimes on a
Sunday night, as a great treat, we were allowed to play Bible games.
Then we would march round and round the nursery table, blowing lustily
on trumpets to cause the walls of Jericho to fall, or Robbie as
Jeremiah would be let down by Mark and me into the pit (which was the
back of the old sofa), with 'clouts under his armpits'; or, again, he
and Mark lay prostrate on the sofa (now the flat roof of an Eastern
house), while I, as Rahab, covered them with flax. I have the nicest
recollections of winter evenings in the study, with the red curtains
drawn, and you sitting mending, when we lay on the hearth-rug, and
Father read to us of Bruce, and Wallace, and that lonely, lovely lady,
Mary of Scotland; but my most cherished memory is of a December day in
Glasgow. It was a yellow fog that seemed to press down on us and choke
us. You were out when we came in from our walk, the fire wasn't good,
and everything seemed unspeakably dreary. We were quarrelling among
ourselves and feeling altogether wretched, when the door opened and
Father looked in on us. 'Alone, folkies?' he said. 'Where's your
mother?' We told him you were out and that we had nothing to do, and
that everything was beastly. He laughed and went away, and came back
presently with a book. It was _The Queen's Wake_, and for the first
time we heard of 'bonnie Kilmeny' who went away to Fairyland. We
forgot the fog, we forgot our grievances; we were carried away with
Kilmeny. Then Father got a ballad-book, and that was even better, for
the clash of armies was ever music in our ears. We sprawled over him
in our excitement as he read how 'in the gryming of a new-fa'en snaw'
Jamie Telfer of the fair Dodhead carried the 'fraye' to Branksome ha'.
Our tea was brought in, but the pile of bread-and-butter was hardly
diminished, for Father read on, sometimes laughing aloud in his delight
at what he read, sometimes stopping for a moment to drink some tea, but
his eyes never leaving the printed page. How could we eat when we were
hearing for the first time of Johnnie Armstrong going out to meet his
King in all good faith, only to find that death was to be his portion?
We howled like angry wolves when Father read:
'To seek het water beneath cauld ice,
Surely it is a great folie--
I have asked grace at a graceless face,
But there is nane for my men and me.'
When you came in, we only looked at you vaguely, and said, 'Go on,
Father, go on,' and he explained, These benighted children have never
heard the _Border Ballad_', Nell,' and then you sat down and listened
too.... D'you remember people in Glasgow, who owned big restaurants
all over the place--Webster, I think, was the name, and there was a fat
only son who sometimes came in to play with us? I don't know what Mr.
Webster was like in his home life, but that fat boy said to me very
feelingly, '_Yours is a jolly kind of father to have_.' It was
generous of him, for only that morning he had taunted me with the fact
that my father played a penny whistle, and I, deeply affronted, had
replied with a tasteful reference to the restaurants, 'Well, anyway, he
doesn't sell tuppenny pies like your father does.'"
"Oh, that penny whistle!" said Mrs. Douglas, with a laugh and a sigh.
"He made wonderful music on it. There was always something of the Pied
Piper about your father. Down in the district the children used to
come up and pull at his coat and look up in his face; they had no fear
of him; and whenever he entered the hall on Band of Hope nights the
place was in an uproar with yells for a story. He would get up on the
little platform and, leaning over the table, he would tell them 'Jock
and his Mother,' or 'The Bannock that went to see the World,' or
'Maya'--fine stories, but not a moral to one of them."
"That was the best of Father's stories: they never had morals," said
Ann. "The real secret of his charm was that at heart he was as much a
child as any of them. Once I was down in the district with him, and we
saw a very dirty little boy sitting on a doorstep. He greeted Father
with a wide grin, and beckoned to him with a grimy forefinger. Father
went obediently, and very slowly and mysteriously the little fellow
drew from his ragged pocket a handful of marbles (very chipped and
dirty ones) and said, 'Thae's whit ye ca' _bool_,' and Father, bending
over the small figure, replied, 'So they are, sonny, so they are!'
"Yes, the fat boy was right: he was a jolly kind of father to have!"