making of ‘gum-floors’ furnished an innocent livelihood to needy people; Kirsty felt that she had scored and spoke, thenceforward, of the good lady with mild contempt as—‘A woman who went about sewing pillows to all armholes’ (see Ezekiel xiii. 18).
Kirsty herself never aspired even to a bonnet. Her invariable outdoor attire consisted of a flowing duffle cloak, an heirloom, descending from her mother at least, and a close-fitting cap with a perfectly unique high peak in its crown. For those friends who craved her esteem the non-wearing of a veil constituted another of her Shibboleths, to her dying day. That very modest appendage had probably sprung into existence in her youth, and been condemned for some reason by the ultra-good. The date of those far-back days of youth was long a carefully-guarded secret. A friend, who thought she had approached the subject skilfully, once ventured on the fateful question, only to be remorselessly snubbed by the reply—‘Secret things belong unto the Lord.’ She surprised us all at last by announcing herself ninety! After that the hundredth anniversary seemed to draw on with very suspicious rapidity. Even then she generally spoke of herself as ‘the Orphan and Fatherless,’ otherwise as ‘the Children of Israel, crossing the Red Sea, with the Egyptians in pursuit.’
I do not think she was Highland, even in the accident of birth. Both parents bore Lowland names. Her mother had been, before marriage, parish schoolmistress in Haddington. Kirsty must have been born in the epoch when this country quivered under constant dread of invasion by Napoleon. She may even have seen the Border beacon-fires flare up on the night of the false alarm. Anyhow, the terror clung to her through life. She could give no more forcible expression to the helplessness of her long illness than in the wail, that she ‘couldna’ rise to run away, no if the French were coming.’ I flattered myself there was a spark of genuine anxiety, mingled with her uncontrollable impulse to take down people’s conceit, when she told me, on a change of residence,
