They had been talking of many things, Ann and her mother, and had
fallen silent.
The wind was tearing through the Green Glen, and moaning eerily round
the house of Dreams, throwing at intervals handfuls of hail which
struck against the panes like pistol-shots.
"A wild night," Mrs. Douglas said, looking over her shoulder at the
curtained windows, and drawing her chair nearer the fire. "This is the
sort of night your father liked to sit by the fireside. He would lift
his head from his book to listen to the wind outside, look round the
warm, light room and give a contented sigh."
"I know," said Ann; "it was very difficult doing without Father. He
had always enjoyed the good things of life so frankly there seemed no
pleasure any longer in a good dinner, or a fine morning, or a blazing
fire, or an interesting book, since he wasn't there to say how fine it
was. Besides his very presence had been a sort of benediction, and it
was almost as if the roof of life had been removed--and it was much
worse for you, poor Mother. We were afraid you would go, too."
"Oh, Ann," Mrs. Douglas, clasping _Hours of Silence_, raised tearful
eyes to her daughter, "I'm sure I didn't want to live. I don't know
why I go on living."
Ann caught her mother's hands in her own. "You funny wee body! You
remind me of the Paisley woman who told me she had lost all her sons in
the war, and was both surprised and annoyed that she hadn't died of
grief. 'An' ma neebor juist lost the one an' _she_ de'ed, and folk
said she niver liftit her heid efter her laddie went, and here wis me
losin' a' mine and gaun aboot quite healthy! An' I'm sure I wis as
vext as whit she wis. It's no want o' grievin' for I'm never dune
greetin'--I begin early i' the mornin' afore I get ma cup o' tea.'"
"Oh, the poor body!" said Mrs. Douglas. "I know so well what she
meant. It sounds funny, but it isn't a bit.... Your father's death
was sheer desolation to me. I remember, a long time ago at Kirkcaple,
going to see a widow who had brought up a most creditable family, and,
looking round her cosy kitchen, I said something about how well she had
done, and that life must be pleasant for her with her children all up
and doing well. And the brisk, active little woman looked at me, and I
was surprised to see tears in her rather hard eyes.
"The bairns are a' richt," she said; "but it maks an awfu' difference
when ye lose yer pairtner....' And then I have so many things to
regret...."
"Regret?" Ann laughed. "I don't think you have one single thing to
regret. If ever a man was happy in his home it was my father."
"Ah, but I was bad to him often. I pretended to be a Radical--a thing
I never was really--simply from contrariness. If I had him back----"
"Now what would you change if you could?" Ann asked.
"Well, for one thing I would never contradict him, or argue..."
"Oh, how Father would have loathed that. Arguing was the breath of
life to him, and he hated to be agreed with."
Mrs. Douglas went on. "And I would never worry him to do things that
went against his judgment. When people took a _tirravee_ and sent for
their lines he always wanted to give them to them at once, but I used
to beg him to go and reason with them and persuade them to remain.
They generally did, for they only wanted to be made a fuss of, but I
see now I was quite wrong; people so senseless deserved no
consideration. And I wouldn't worry him to go and ask popular
preachers to come to us for anniversary services and suchlike
occasions! That was the thing he most hated doing."
"I don't wonder," said Ann. "To ask favours is never pleasant, and
popular preachers are apt to get a bit above themselves and condescend
a little to the older, less successful men who are living in a day of
small things. But I don't think any of us, you least of all, need
reproach ourselves with not having appreciated Father. And yet, when
he went away it seemed quite wrong to mourn for him. To have pulled
long faces and gone about plunged in grief would have been like an
insult to the happy soul who had finished his day's work and gone home.
It wasn't a case of
'Better by far you should forget and smile,
Than that you should remember and be sad.'
It was simply that we had so many happy things to remember we couldn't
but smile. We wouldn't have had anything changed. To the very end his
ways were ways of pleasantness and all his paths were peace. But when
Robbie died----"
Ann stopped, and her mother took up her words:
"When Robbie died we seemed to sink into a black pit of horror. We
didn't want to see anyone. We could hardly look at the letters that
poured in; their lamentations seemed to add to our burden. Only Miss
Barbara's was any use, and all she said was, 'I have prayed for you
that your faith fail not.'"
"It seemed so _unfair_," Ann said slowly. "In a shop one day the woman
who was serving me asked so kindly for you, and wanted to know how you
were bearing up. Then she said suddenly: 'When thae awfu' nice folk
dee div ye no juist fair feel that ye could rebel?' Rebel! Poor
helpless mortals that we are!"
Mrs. Douglas shook her head. "If there is one lesson I have learned it
is the folly of kicking against the pricks. To be bitter and resentful
multiplies the grief a thousandfold. There is nothing for it but
submission. Shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord and not
receive evil? There is an odd text that strikes me every time I come
to it: '_And David was comforted concerning Ammon because he was
dead_.' I don't know what it means, perhaps that Ammon fought with
David so David was glad he was dead, but it always has a special
meaning for me. We had to come to it, Ann, you and I, when we tramped
those long walks by Tweedside rather than sit at home and face callers
and sympathy. It was Robbie himself who helped us most. The thought
of him, so brave and gay and gentle, simply _made_ us believe that in a
short time he had fulfilled a long time, and that God had taken him
against that day when He shall make up His jewels. We could only cling
to the fact that God is Love, and that it was to Himself He had taken
the boy who seemed to us so altogether lovely."
Mrs. Douglas took off her spectacles and rubbed them with her
handkerchief, and Ann said:
"Yes, Mother, at moments we felt all that, and were comforted, but
there are so many days when it seems you can't get above the sense of
loss. Those nights when one dreamed he was with us, and wakened.
There's not much doubt about Death's sting.... But what kept me from
going under altogether was the thought of Davie. I tried never to let
him see me with a dull face. All his life the child had dreaded
sadness, and it seemed hard that he should so early become 'acquainted
with grief.' After Robbie's death, when he came into a room the first
thing he did was to glance quickly at our faces to see if we had been
crying, and if we looked at him happily his face cleared. If anybody
mentioned Robbie's name he slipped quietly out of the room. Jim was
the same. I think men are like that. Women can talk and find relief,
but to speak about his grief is the last thing an ordinary man can do.
That's why I was sorrier for the fathers in the war than the
mothers.... I was glad Davie was at college and busy all day. I think
he dreaded coming home that Easter."
"But I don't think he found it bad, Ann. He had his great friend
Anthony with him, and we all tried our best to give him a good time.
And at seventeen it isn't so hard to rise above trouble."
"Oh no," said Ann; "and Davie was so willing to be happy." She
laughed. "I never knew anyone so appreciative of a joke--any sort of
joke. When he was a tiny boy if I said anything which I meant to be
funny, and which met with no response, Davie would say indignantly:
'Nana's made a joke and nobody laughed.' He always gave a loud laugh
himself--'Me hearty laugh,' he called it."
"Oh, I'd forgotten that," cried Davie's mother; "'me hearty laugh.' We
all treated Davie as a joke, and didn't bother much whether his school
reports were good or only fairly good. He wasn't at all studious
naturally, though he was passionately fond of reading, and I'm afraid
we liked to find excuses to let him play. Only Robbie took him
seriously. You remember when he was home on leave he protested against
Davie bounding everywhere and having no fixed hours of study. 'We've
got to think of the chap's future,' he said."
"Robbie and Davie adored each other," Ann said. "They were so funny
together--Davie a little bashful with the big brother. I remember
hearing Davie telling Robbie about some Fabian Society that he belonged
to, and what they discussed at it, and Robbie stood looking at him
through his eyeglass with an amused grin on his face, and said, 'Stout
fellow!' That was always what he said to Davie, 'Stout fellow!' I can
hear him now.... But the odd thing was that Davie seemed to take no
interest in his own future. It was almost as if he realised that this
world held no future for him. Mark, always careful and troubled, used
to worry about a profession for him. He wanted him to go into the
Navy, but you vetoed that as too dangerous; it mustn't be India,
because we couldn't part with our baby."
Mrs. Douglas leaned forward to push in a falling log. "I was foolishly
anxious about Davie always; never quite happy if he was away from me.
I worried the boy sometimes, but he was patient with me. 'Poor wee
body,' he always said, and put his arms round me--he learned that
expression from Robbie."
"I have an old exercise book," said Ann, "in which Davie made his first
efforts at keeping accounts--David _Douglas in account with self_. It
is very much ornamented with funny faces and not very accurate, for
sums are frequently noted as 'lost.' It stops suddenly, and underneath
is scrawled, 'The war here intervened.' We didn't need to worry about
his work in the world. That was decided for him when--
'God chose His squires, and trained their hands
For those stern lists of liberty.'"
Mrs. Douglas caught her breath with a sob. "At once he clamoured to
go, but he was so young, only eighteen, and I said he must only offer
for home defence; and he said, 'All right, wee body, that'll do to
start with,' but in a very short time he was away to train with
Kitchener's first army."
"He was miserable, Mother, until he got away. Jim was refused
permission from the first, and had to settle down to his job, but for
most of us the bottom seemed to have fallen out of the world, and one
could settle to nothing. In the crashing of empires the one stable
thing was that fact that the _Scotsman_ continued its 'Nature Notes.'
That amused Davie.... He began an album of war poetry, cutting out and
pasting in verses that appeared in the _Times_ and _Spectator_ and
_Punch_ and other papers. 'Carmina Belli' he printed on the outside.
He charged me to go on with it when he went away, and I finished it
with Mark's poem on himself:
'You left the line with jest and smile
And heart that would not bow to pain--
_I'll lay me downe and bleed awhile,
And then I'll rise and fight again_.'"
Ann got up and leaned her brow on the mantel-shelf, and looking into
the fire, said:
"D'you know, Mother, I think that first going away was the worst of
all, though he was only going to England to train. Nothing afterwards
so broke me down as seeing the fresh-faced boy in his grey tweed suit
going off with such a high heart. I don't know what you felt about it,
but the sword pierced my heart then. You remember it was the Fair at
Priorsford! and the merry-go-rounds on the Green buzzed round to a tune
he had often sung, some ridiculous words about 'Hold your hand out, you
naughty boy.' As I stood in my little swallow's-nest of a room and
looked out over the Green, and saw the glare of the naphtha lamps
reflected in the water, and the swing-boats passing backwards and
forwards, through light into darkness, and from darkness into light,
and realised that Davie had been born for the Great War, every chord
seemed to strike at my heart."
"Oh, Ann," Mrs. Douglas cried, "I never let myself think. It was my
only chance to go on working as hard as ever I was able at whatever
came to my hand. I left him in God's hands. I was helpless."
The tears were running down her face as she spoke, and Ann said, "Poor
Mother, it was hardest for you. Your cry was the old, old cry: 'Joseph
is not, Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away....' But our
Benjamin was so glad to go. And he never found anything to grumble at,
not even at Bramshott, where there was nothing fit to eat, and the huts
leaked, and the mud was unspeakable, and his uniform consisted of a red
tunic made for a very large man, and a pair of exceedingly bad blue
breeks. When he came at Christmas--he made me think of one of Prince
Charlie's men with his shabby uniform and yellow hair--how glad he was
to have a real wallowing hot bath, with bath salts and warm towels, and
get into his own tweeds. He was just beginning to get clean when he
had to go again! In a few weeks he got his commission, and in the
autumn of 1915 he went to France--'as gentle and as jocund as to jest
went he to fight.'"
There was a silence in the pleasant room as the two women thought their
own thoughts, and the fire crackled and the winter wind beat upon the
house.
Mrs. Douglas spoke first. "It was a wonderful oasis in that desert of
anxiety when Davie was wounded and at home. Those nights when we had
lain awake thinking of him in the trenches, those days when we were
afraid for every ring at the bell, and hardly dared look when we opened
the hall door after being out, in case the orange envelope should be
lying on the table. To have all that suddenly changed. To know that
he was lying safe and warm and clean in a white bed in a private
hospital in London, 'lying there with a face like a herd,' Mark wrote,
with nothing much the matter with him but a shrapnel wound in his
leg--it was almost too much relief. And we had him at Queensferry all
summer. We were greatly blessed, Ann."
"And it wasn't quite so bad letting him go the second time," Ann said.
"He had been there once and had got out alive and he knew the men he
was going to, and was glad to go back; and Mark wasn't far from him,
and could see him sometimes."
"His letters were so cheery. From his accounts you would have thought
that living in the trenches was a sort of jolly picnic. Oh, Ann, do
you remember the letter to me written in the train going up to the
line, when he said he had dreamt he was a small boy again, and 'I
thought I had lost you, wee body, and I woke up shouting "Mother," to
the amusement of the other men in the carriage?'"
"Some people," said Ann, "go through the world afraid all the time that
they are being taken advantage of. Davie never ceased to be amazed at
the kindness shown him. He was one of those happy souls whose path
through life is lined with friends, and whose kind eyes meet only
affectionate glances. His letters were full of the kindness he
received--the 'decent lad' in his platoon who heard him say his dug-out
was draughty, and who made a shutter for the window and stopped up all
the cracks; the two corporals from the Gallowgate who formed his
bodyguard, and every time he fell into a shell-hole or dodged a crump
shouted anxiously, 'Are ye hurt, sirr?' You remember he wrote: 'These
last two years have been the happiest in my life,' and other men who
were with him told us he never lost his high spirits."
"That was such a terribly long, hard winter," Mrs. Douglas said. "The
snow was never off the hills for months. And then spring came, but
such a spring! Nothing but wild winds and dreary sleet. We hoped and
hoped that Davie would get leave--he was next on the list for it--but
he wrote and said his leave had gone 'very far West.' We didn't know
it, but they were getting ready for the big spring offensive. Then one
day we saw that a battle had begun at Arras, and Davie's letter that
morning read like a farewell. Things may be happening shortly, but
don't worry about me. I've just been thinking what a good life I've
had all round, and what a lot of happiness I've had. Even the sad
parts are a comfort now....'"
"Mother, do you see," said Ann, "there's your text about Ammon. Out
there, waiting for the big battle, Davie didn't feel it sad any more
than Father and Robbie had gone out of the world--he was _comforted
concerning them because they were dead_. We were thinking of him and
praying for him every hour of the day, but he felt them nearer to him
than we were."
"To think that when that letter came he was dead! To think that I was
in Glasgow with Miss Barbara talking of him nearly all the time, for
Miss Barbara loved the boy, and nothing told us he was no longer in the
world. To think of the child--he was little more--waiting there in the
darkness for the signal to attack. He must have been so anxious about
leading the company, so afraid----"
"Anxious maybe," said Ann, "but not really afraid. Don't you remember
what his great friend Captain Shiels wrote and told us, that while they
waited for the dawn Davie spoke 'words of comfort and encouragement to
his men.' I cry when I think of that...."
"My little boy--my baby. Away from us all--_alone_...."
"No. No, Mother, never less alone; 'compassed about with a great cloud
of witnesses.' I have a notion that all the great army of men who down
through the centuries have given their lives for our country's bright
cause were with our men in that awful fighting, steeling the courage of
those boy-soldiers.... And Father and Robbie were beside him, I am
very sure, and Father would know then that all his prayers were
answered for his boy--the bad little boy who refused to say his
prayers, the timid little boy who was afraid to go into a dark
room--when he saw him stand, with Death tapping him on the shoulder,
speaking 'words of comfort and encouragement to his men.' I think
Robbie would say, 'Stout fellow.' That was the 9th. The telegram came
to us on the afternoon of the 11th. Jim and I were terribly anxious,
and I had been doing all the jobs I hated most with a sort of lurking,
ashamed feeling in my heart that if we worked our hardest and did our
very best Davie might be spared to us."
Ann stopped, and went on, half-laughing, half-crying:
"Like poor Mrs. Clark, one of my women. She told me how she had gone
out and helped a sick neighbour, and coming home had seen some
children, whose father was fighting and whose mother was ill, playing
in the rain, and she had taken them in and given them a hot meal. As
they were leaving the postman brought her a letter saying her son was
dead in Mesopotamia. She said to me, defiantly, as if she were scoring
off Providence, 'I'm no gaun tae _pray_ nae mair,' and I knew exactly
what she felt."
"Oh, the poor woman," said Mrs. Douglas weeping.
"I thought," Ann went on, "that if no wire came that day it would mean
that Davie had got through--but at tea-time it came. I went into
Glasgow next morning by the first train to tell you. Phoebe was
washing the front door steps at No. 10, and she told me you and Miss
Barbara were in the dining-room at breakfast. I stood in the doorway
and looked at you. You were laughing and telling Miss Barbara
something funny that had been in one of Davie's letters. I felt like a
murderer standing there. When I went into the room your face lit up
for a moment, and then you realised. 'It is the laddie?' you
whispered, and I nodded. You neither spoke nor cried, but stood
looking before you as if you were thinking very deeply about something,
then 'I would like to go home,' you said...."
"And to think," Mrs. Douglas said, breaking a long silence, "that I am
only one of millions of mothers who will go mourning to their graves."
"I know, Mother. I know. But you wouldn't ask him back even if that
were possible. You wouldn't, if you could, take 'the purple of his
blood out of the cross on the breastplate of England.' Don't you love
these words of Ruskin? It's the proudest thing we have to think about,
and, honestly--I'm not just saying this--I believe that the men who lie
out there have the best of it. The men who came back will, most of
them, have to fight a grim struggle, for living is none too pleasant
just now, and they will grow old, and bald, and ill-tempered, and they
have all to die in the end. What is twenty more years of life but
twenty more years of fearing death? But our men whose sacrifice was
accepted, and who were allowed to pour out the sweet, red wine of
youth, passed at one bound from glorious life to glorious life. 'Eld
shall not make a mock of that dear head.' They know not age or
weariness or defeat."