The dogcart bumped between the trees of Caddam, flinging Gavin and the
doctor at each other as a wheel rose on some beech-root or sank for a
moment in a pool. I suppose the wood was a pretty sight that day, the
pines only white where they had met the snow, as if the numbed painter
had left his work unfinished, the brittle twigs snapping overhead, the
water as black as tar. But it matters little what the wood was like.
Within a squirrel's leap of it an old woman was standing at the door
of a mud house listening for the approach of the trap that was to take
her to the poorhouse. Can you think of the beauty of the day now?
Nanny was not crying. She had redd up her house for the last time and
put on her black merino. Her mouth was wide open while she listened.
If you had addressed her you would have thought her polite and stupid.
Look at her. A flabby-faced woman she is now, with a swollen body, and
no one has heeded her much these thirty years. I can tell you
something; it is almost droll. Nanny Webster was once a gay flirt, and
in Airlie Square there is a weaver with an unsteady head who thought
all the earth of her. His loom has taken a foot from his stature, and
gone are Nanny's raven locks on which he used to place his adoring
hand. Down in Airlie Square he is weaving for his life, and here is
Nanny, ripe for the poorhouse, and between them is the hill where they
were lovers. That is all the story save that when Nanny heard the
dogcart she screamed.
No neighbour was with her. If you think this hard, it is because you
do not understand. Perhaps Nanny had never been very lovable except to
one man, and him, it is said, she lost through her own vanity; but
there was much in her to like. The neighbours, of whom there were two
not a hundred yards away, would have been with her now but they feared
to hurt her feelings. No heart opens to sympathy without letting in
delicacy, and these poor people knew that Nanny would not like them to
see her being taken away. For a week they had been aware of what was
coming, and they had been most kind to her, but that hideous word, the
poorhouse, they had not uttered. Poorhouse is not to be spoken in
Thrums, though it is nothing to tell a man that you see death in his
face. Did Nanny think they knew where she was going? was a question
they whispered to each other, and her suffering eyes cut scars on
their hearts. So now that the hour had come they called their children
into their houses and pulled down their blinds.
"If you would like to see her by yourself," the doctor said eagerly to
Gavin, as the horse drew up at Nanny's gate, "I'll wait with the
horse. Not," he added, hastily, "that I feel sorry for her. We are
doing her a kindness."
They dismounted together, however, and Nanny, who had run from the
trap into the house, watched them from her window.
McQueen saw her and said glumly, "I should have come alone, for if you
pray she is sure to break down. Mr. Dishart, could you not pray
cheerfully?"
"You don't look very cheerful yourself," Gavin said sadly.
"Nonsense," answered the doctor. "I have no patience with this false
sentiment. Stand still, Lightning, and be thankful you are not your
master to-day."
The door stood open, and Nanny was crouching against the opposite wall
of the room, such a poor, dull kitchen, that you would have thought
the furniture had still to be brought into it. The blanket and the
piece of old carpet that was Nanny's coverlet were already packed in
her box. The plate rack was empty. Only the round table and the two
chairs, and the stools and some pans were being left behind.
"Well, Nanny," the doctor said, trying to bluster, "I have come, and
you see Mr. Dishart is with me."
Nanny rose bravely. She knew the doctor was good to her, and she
wanted to thank him. I have not seen a great deal of the world myself,
but often the sweet politeness of the aged poor has struck me as
beautiful. Nanny dropped a curtesy, an ungainly one maybe, but it was
an old woman giving the best she had.
"Thank you kindly, sirs," she said; and then two pairs of eyes dropped
before hers.
"Please to take a chair," she added timidly. It is strange to know
that at that awful moment, for let none tell me it was less than
awful, the old woman was the one who could speak.
Both men sat down, for they would have hurt Nanny by remaining
standing. Some ministers would have known the right thing to say to
her, but Gavin dared not let himself speak. I have again to remind you
that he was only one-and-twenty.
"I'm drouthy, Nanny," the doctor said, to give her something to do,
"and I would be obliged for a drink of water."
Nanny hastened to the pan that stood behind her door, but stopped
before she reached it.
"It's toom," she said. "I--I didna think I needed to fill it this
morning." She caught the doctor's eye, and could only half restrain a
sob. "I couldna help that," she said, apologetically. "I'm richt angry
at myself for being so ungrateful like."
The doctor thought it best that they should depart at once. He rose.
"Oh, no, doctor," cried Nanny in alarm.
"But you are ready?"
"Ay," she said, "I have been ready this twa hours, but you micht wait
a minute. Hendry Munn and Andrew Allardyce is coming yont the road,
and they would see me."
"Wait, doctor," Gavin said.
"Thank you kindly, sir," answered Nanny.
"But Nanny," the doctor said, "you must remember what I told you about
the poo--, about the place you are going to. It is a fine house, and
you will be very happy in it."
"Ay, I'll be happy in't," Nanny faltered, "but, doctor, if I could
just hae bidden on here though I wasna happy!"
"Think of the food you will get; broth nearly every day."
"It--it'll be terrible enjoyable," Nanny said.
"And there will be pleasant company for you always," continued the
doctor, "and a nice room to sit in. Why, after you have been there a
week, you won't be the same woman."
"That's it!" cried Nanny with sudden passion. "Na, na; I'll be a woman
on the poor's rates. Oh, mither, mither, you little thocht when you
bore me that I would come to this!"
"Nanny," the doctor said, rising again, "I am ashamed of you."
"I humbly speir your forgiveness, sir," she said, "and you micht bide
just a wee yet. I've been ready to gang these twa hours, but now that
the machine is at the gate, I dinna ken how it is, but I'm terrible
sweer to come awa'. Oh, Mr. Dishart, it's richt true what the doctor
says about the--the place, but I canna just take it in. I'm--I'm gey
auld."
"You will often get out to see your friends," was all Gavin could
say.
"Na, na, na," she cried, "dinna say that; I'll gang, but you mauna bid
me ever come out, except in a hearse. Dinna let onybody in Thrums look
on my face again."
"We must go," said the doctor firmly. "Put on your mutch, Nanny."
"I dinna need to put on a mutch," she answered, with a faint flush of
pride. "I have a bonnet."
She took the bonnet from her bed, and put it on slowly.
"Are you sure there's naebody looking?" she asked.
The doctor glanced at the minister, and Gavin rose.
"Let us pray," he said, and the three went down on their knees.
It was not the custom of Auld Licht ministers to leave any house
without offering up a prayer in it, and to us it always seemed that
when Gavin prayed, he was at the knees of God. The little minister
pouring himself out in prayer in a humble room, with awed people
around him who knew much more of the world than he, his voice at times
thick and again a squeal, and his hands clasped not gracefully, may
have been only a comic figure, but we were old-fashioned, and he
seemed to make us better men. If I only knew the way, I would draw him
as he was, and not fear to make him too mean a man for you to read
about. He had not been long in Thrums before he knew that we talked
much of his prayers, and that doubtless puffed him up a little.
Sometimes, I daresay, he rose from his knees feeling that he had
prayed well to-day, which is a dreadful charge to bring against any
one. But it was not always so, nor was it so now.
I am not speaking harshly of this man, whom I have loved beyond all
others, when I say that Nanny came between him and his prayer. Had he
been of God's own image, unstained, he would have forgotten all else
in his Maker's presence, but Nanny was speaking too, and her words
choked his. At first she only whispered, but soon what was eating her
heart burst out painfully, and she did not know that the minister had
stopped.