The Stickit Minister's Wooing/The Lass in the Shop
THE LASS IN THE SHOP
In Galloway, if you find an eldest son of the same name as his father, search the mother's face for the marks of a tragedy. An eldest son is rarely called by his father's Christian name, and when he is, usually there is a little grave down in the kirkyard or a name that is seldom spoken in the house—a dead Abel or a wandering Cain, at any rate a first-born that was—and is not.
Now I am called Alexander McQuhirr. My father also is Alexander McQuhirr. And the reason is that a link has dropped out. I remember the day I found out that you could make my mother jump by coming quietly behind her and calling "Willie." It was Willie McArthur I was after—he had come over from Whinnyliggate to play with me. We were busy at "hide-and-seek."
"Willie!" I cried, sharp as one who would wake an echo.
My mother dropped a bowl and caught at her side.
It is only recently that she told me the whole story.
The truth was that with twelve years between our ages and Willie away most of the time, I had no particular reason to remember my elder brother. For years before I was born my mother had been compassionated with by the good wives of the neighbourhood, proud nursing mothers of ten or eleven, because she could boast of but one chicken in her brood. She has confessed to me what she suffered on that account. And though now I have younger brothers and the reproach was wiped away in time, there are certain Job's comforters whom my mother has never forgiven.
She would be sure to spoil Willie,—one child in a house was always spoilt. So the tongues went ding-dong. It was foolish to send him to school at Cairn Edward, throwing away good siller, instead of keeping him at home to single the turnips. Thus and thus was the reproach of my mother's reluctant maternity rubbed in—and to this day the rubbers are not forgotten. It will be time enough to forgive them, thinks my mother, when she comes to lie on her death-bed.
Yet from all that I can gather there was some truth in what they said, and probably this is what rankles in that dear, kindly, ever vehement bosom. Willie was indeed spoilt. He was by all accounts a handsome lad. He had his own way early, and what was worse—money to spend upon it. At thirteen he was bound apprentice to good honest Joseph Baillieson of the Apothecaries' Hall in Cairn Edward. Joseph was a chemist of the old school, who, when a more than usually illegible line occurred in the doctors' prescriptions of the day, always said: "We'll caa' it barley-water. That'll hairm naebody." All Joseph's dispensing was of the eminently practical kind.
To Mr. Baillieson, therefore, Willie was made apprentice, and if he would have profited, he could not have been in better hands, and this story never had been written. But the fact was, he was too early away from home. He was my mother's eye-apple, and as the farm was doing well during these years, an occasional pound note was slipped him when my mother was down on Market Monday. Now this is a part of the history she has never told me. I can only piece it together from hints and suggestions. But it is a road I know well. I have seen too many walk in it.
Mainly, I do not think it was so much bad company as thoughtlessness and high spirits. Sweetmeats and gloves to a girl more witty than wise, neckties and a small running account yonder, membership of the rowing club and a small occasional stake upon the races—not much in themselves, perhaps, but more than enough for an apprentice with two half-crowns a week of pocket money. So there came a time when honest Joseph Baillieson, with many misgivings and grave down-drawings of upper lip, as I doubt not, took my father into the little back shop where the liniments were made up and the pills rolled.
What they said to each other I do not know, but when Alexander McQuhirr came out his face was marvellously whitened. He waited for Willie at his lodgings, and brought him home that night with him. He stayed just a week at the farm, restlessly scouring the hills by day and coming in to his bed late at night.
After a time, by means of the minister, a place was found for him in Edinburgh, and he set off in the coach with his little box, leaving what prayerful anxious hearts behind him only those who are fathers and mothers know.
He was to lodge with a good old woman in the Pleasance, a regular hearer of Dr. Lawton's of Lady Nixon's Wynd. For a small wage she agreed to mend his socks and keep a motherly eye on his morals. He was to be in by ten, and latch-keys were not allowed.
Now I do not doubt that it was lonely for Willie up there in the great city. And in all condemnation, let the temptation be weighed and noted.
May God bless the good folk of the Open Door who, with sons and daughters of their own, set wide their portals and invite the stranger within where there is the sound of girlish laughter, the boisterous give-and-take of youthful wit, and—yes, as much as anything else, the clatter of hospitable knives and forks working together.
Such an Open Door has saved many from destruction, and in That Day it shall be counted to that Man (or, more often, that Woman) for righteousness.
For consider how lonely a lad's life is when first he comes up from the country. He works till he is weary, and in the evening the little bedroom is intolerably lonely and infinitely stuffy. If the Door of Kindness be not opened for him—if he lack the friend's hand, the comrade's slap on the back, the modest uplift of honest maidenly eyes—take my word for it, the Lad in the Garret will soon seek another way of it. There are many that will show him the guide-posts of that road. Other doors are open. Other laughter rings, not mellow and sweet, but as the crackling of thorns under a pot. If a youth be cut off from the one, he will have the other—that is, if the blood course hot and quick in his veins.
And so, good folk of the city, you bien and comfortable householders, you true mothers in Israel, fathers and mothers of brisk lads and winsome lasses, do not forget that you may save more souls from going down to the Pit in one year than a score of ministers in a lifetime. And I, who write these things, know.
Many a foot has been stayed on the Path called Perilous simply because "a damsel named Rhoda" came to answer a knock at a door. The time is not at all bygone when "Given to hospitality" is also a saving grace. And in the Day of Many Surprises, it shall be said of many a plain man and unpretending housewife: "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto Me!"
*******
But so it was not with Willie my brother. There was none to speak the word, and so he did after his kind. How much he did or how far he went I cannot tell. Perhaps it is best not to know. But, at all events, I can remember his home-coming to Drumquhat one Saturday night after he had been a year or fifteen months in Edinburgh. He came unexpectedly, and I was sleeping in a little crib set across the foot of my parents' bed in the "ben" room.
My mother was a light sleeper all her days, and, besides, I judge her heart was sore. For never breeze tossed the trees or rustled the beech-leaves, but she thought of her boy so far away. In a moment she was up, and I after her, all noiseless on my bare feet, though the tails of my night gear flapped like a banner in the draughty passage. The dogs upon the hearthstone never so much as growled.
"Wha's there?"
"It's me, mither!"
"Willie!"
It was indeed Willie, a tall lad with a white face, a bright colour high-set on his cheek-bone, a dancing light in his eyes, and, at sight of his mother, a smile on his lips. He was dressed in what seemed to me a style of grandeur such as I had never beheld, probably no more than a suit of town-cut tweeds, a smart tie, and a watch-chain. But then my standard was gray home-spun and home-dyed—as often as not home-tailored too. And Solomon in all his glory did not seem to be arrayed one half so nobly as my elder brother Willie.
I do not mind much about the visit, except that Willie let me wear his watch-chain, which was of gold, for nearly half-an-hour, and promised that the next time he came back he would trust me with the watch, as well. But the following afternoon something happened that I do remember. After dinner, which was at noon as it had been ever since the beginning of time, my father sat still in his great corner chair instead of going to the barn. My mother sent me out to play.
"And bide in the yaird till I send for ye, mind—and dinna let me see your face till tea-time!" was her command, giving me a friendly cuff on the ear by way of speeding the parting guest.
By this I knew that there was something she did not want me to hear. So I went about the house to the little window at which my father said his prayers. It stood open as always, like Daniel's, towards Jerusalem. I could not hear very well; but that was no fault of mine. I did my best.
Willie was speaking very fast, telling his father something—something to which my mother vehemently objected. I could hear her interruptions rising stormily, and my father trying to calm her. Willie spoke low, except now and then when his voice broke into a kind of scream. I remember being very wae for him, and feeling in my pocket for a dirty half-sucked brandy ball which I resolved to give him when he came out. It had often comforted me in times of trouble.
"Siclike nonsense I never heard!" cried my mother, "a callant like you! A besom—a designing madam, nocht else—that's what she is! I wonder to hear ye, Willie!"
"Wheesh, wheest—Mary!"
I could hear my father's voice, grave and sober as ever. Then Willie's vehement rush of words went on till I heard my mother break in again.
"Marriage! Marriage! Sirce, heard ye ever the like? A bairn to speak to me o' mairrying a woman naebody kens ocht aboot—a 'lass in a shop,' ye say; aye, I'se warrant a bonny shop!"
Then there came the sound of a chair pushed vehemently back, the crash of a falling dish. My father's voice, deep and terrible so that I trembled, followed. "Sir, sit down on your seat and compose yourself! Do not speak thus to your mother!"
"I will not sit down—I will not compose myself—I will never sit down in this house again—I will marry Lizzie in spite of you all!"
And almost before I could get round to the front yard again Willie had come whirling all disorderedly out of the kitchen door, shutting it to with a clash that shook the house. Then with wild and angry eyes he strode across the straw-littered space, taking no notice of me, but leaping the gate and so down the little loaning and up towards the heather like a man walking in his sleep.
I remember I ran after him, calling him to come back; but he never heeded me till I pulled him by the coat tails. It was away up near the march dyke, and I could hardly speak with running so fast. He stared as if he did not know me.
"Oh, dinna—dinna—come back!" I cried (and I think I wept); "dinna vex my mither!—And—there's 'rummelt tawties'[1] to the supper!"
But Willie would not stop for all I could say to him.
However, he patted me on the head.
"Bide at hame and be Jacob," he said; "they have cast out this Esau."
For he had been well learned in the Bible, and once got a prize for catechism at the day school at Whinnyliggate. It was Boston's Fourfold State, so, though there were three copies in the house, I never tried to read it.
So saying, he took the hillside like a goat, while I stood open-mouthed, gazing at the lithe figure of him who was my brother as it grew smaller, and finally vanished over the heathery shoulder of the Rig of Drumquhat.
That night I heard my father and mother talking far into the morning, while I made a pretence of sleeping.
"I will never own him!" said my father, who was now the angry one.
"I'm feared he doesna look strong!" answered my mother in the darkness.
"He shall sup sorrow for the way he spoke to the father that begat him and the mother that bore him!" said my father.
"Dinna say that, guidman!" pled my mother; "it is like cursin' oor ain firstborn. Think how proud ye were the time he grippit ye by the hand comin' up the loanin' an' caa'ed ye 'Dadda!'"
After this there was silence for a space, and then it was my mother who spoke.
"No, Alexander, you shallna gang to Edinbra to bring him hame. Gin yin o' us maun gang, let it be me. For ye wad be overly sore on the lad. But oh, the madam—the Jezebel, her that has wiled him awa' frae us, wait till I get my tongue on her!"
And this is how my mother carried out her threat, told in her own words.
*******
"Oh, that weary toon!" she said afterwards. "The streets sae het and dry, the blawin' stoor, the peetifu' bairns in the gutter, and the puir chapman's joes standin' at the close-mouths wi' their shawls aboot their heads! I wondered what yin o' them had gotten haud o' my Willie. But at last I cam' to the place where he lodged. It was at a time o' the day when I kenned he wad be at his wark. It was a hoose as muckle as three kirks a' biggit on the tap o' yin anither, an' my Willie bode, as it were, in the tapmaist laft.
"It was an auld lame woman wi' a mutch on her head that opened the door. I askit for Willie.
"'He's no here,' says she; 'an' what may ye want wi' him?'
"'I'm his mither,' says I, and steppit ben. She was gye thrawn at the first, but I sune tamed her. She was backward to tell me ocht aboot Willie's ongangin's, but nane backward to tell me that his 'book' hadna been payit for six weeks, and that she was sore in need o' the siller. So I countit it doon to her shillin' by shillin', penny by penny.
"'An' noo,' says I, 'tell me a' ye ken o' this madam that has bewitched my bairn, her that's costin' him a' this siller—for doubtless he is wearin' it on the Jezebel—an' breakin' his mither's heart.'
"Then the landlady's face took on anither cast and colour. She hummed an' hawed a whilie. Then at last she speaks plain.
"'She's nane an ill lass,' she says, '’deed, she comes o' guid kin, and—she's neither mair nor less than sister's bairn to mysel'!'
"Wi' that I rises to my feet. 'If she be in this hoose, let me see her. I will speak wi' the woman face to face. Oh, if I could only catch them thegither I wad let her ken what it is to twine a mither and her boy!'
"The auld lame guidwife opens the door o' a bit closet wi' a bed in it and a chair or twa.
"'Gang in there,' she says, 'an' ye shall hae your desire. In a quarter o' an hour Lisbeth will be comin' hame frae the shop where she serves, and its mair than likely that your son will be wi' her!'
"And wi' that she snecks the door wi' a brainge. For I could see she was angry at what I had said aboot her kith an' kin. And I liked her the better for that.
"So there I sat thinkin' on what I wad say to the lass when she cam' in. And aye the mair I thocht, the faster the words raise in my mind, till I was fair feared I wad never get time to utter a tenth-part o' my mind. It needna hae troubled me, had I only kenned.
"Then there was the risp o' a key in the lock, for in thae rickles o' stane an' lime that they rin up noo a days, ye can hear a cat sneeze ower a hale 'flat.' I heard footsteps gang by the door o' the closet an' intil the front room. And I grippit the handle, bidin' my time to break oot on them.
"But there was something that held me. A lassie's voice, fleechin' and fleechin' wi' the lad she loves as if for life or death. Hoo did I ken that?—Weel, it's nae business o' yours, Alec, hoo I kenned it. But yince hear it and ye'll never forget it.
"'Willie,' it said, 'tak' the siller, I dinna need it. Put it back before they miss it—and oh, never, never gang to thae races again!'
"I sat stane-cauld, dumb-stricken. It was an awesome thing for a mither to hear. Then Willie answered.
"''Lizzie,' he said, and, I kenned he had been greeting, 'Lizzie, I canna tak' the money. I would be a greater hound than I am if I took the siller ye hae saved for the house and the marriage braws—and'
"'Oh, Will,' she cried, and I kenned fine she was greetin' too, an' grippin' him aboot the neck, 'I dinna want to be mairried—I dinna want a hoose o' my ain—I dinna want ony weddin' braws, if only ye will tak' the siller—and—be my ain guid lad and never break your mither's heart—an' mine! Oh, promise me, Willie! Let me hear ye promise me!'
"Aye, she said that—an' me hidin' there ready to speak to her like a tinkler's messan.
"So I opens the door an' gaed in. Willie had some pound notes grippit in his hand, and the lassie was on her knees thankin' God that he had ta'en her hard-earned savin's as she asked him, and that he had promised to be a guid boy.
"'Mither!' says Willie, and his lips were white.
"And at the word the lassie rises, and I could see her legs tremble aneath her as she cam' nearer to me.
"'Dinna be hard on him,' she says; 'he has promised'
"'What's that in your hand?' says I, pointing at the siller.
"'It's money I have stolen!' says Willie, wi' a face like a streikit corpse.
"'Oh no, no,' cries the lass, 'it's his ain—his an' mine!'
"And if ever there was a lee markit doon in shinin' gold in the book o' the Recordin' Angel it was that yin. She was nae great beauty to look at—a bit slip o' a fair-haired lass, wi' blue een an' a ringlet or twa peepin' oot where ye didna expect them. But she looked bonny then—aye, as bonny as ever your Nance did.
"'Gie the pound notes back to the lass!' says I, 'and syne you and me will gang doon and speak with your maister that ye hae robbit!'
"And wi' that the lass fell doon at my feet and grippit me, and fleeched on me, and kissed my hands, and let the warm tears rin drap—drap on my fingers.
"'Oh dinna, dinna do that,' she cried, 'let him pit them back. He only took them for a loan. Let him pit them back this nicht when his maister is awa hame for his tea. He is a hard man, and Willie is a' I hae!'"
*******
"Weel," my mother would conclude, "may be it wasna juist richt—but I couldna resist the lass. So Willie did as she said, and naething was kenned. But I garred him gie in his notice the next day, and I took him hame, for it was clear as day that the lad was deein' on his feet. And I brocht the lass hame wi' me too. And if Willie had leeved—but it wasna to be. We juist keepit him till November. And the last nicht we sat yin on ilka side o' the bed, her haudin' a hand and me haudin' a hand, neither jealous o' the ither, which was a great wonder. An' I think he kind o' dovered an' sleepit—whiles wanderin' in his mind and syne waukin' wi' a strange look on his face. But ower in the sma' hours when the wind begins to rise and blaw caulder, and the souls o' men to slip awa, he started up. It was me he saw first, for the candle was on my side.
"'Mither,' he said, 'where's Lizzie?'
"And when he saw her sit by him, he drew away the hand that had been in mine and laid it on hers.
"'Lizzie,' he said, 'dinna greet, my bonnie: I promise! I will be your ain guid lad!'"
*******
"And the lass?" I queried.
"Oh, she gaed back to the shop, and they say she has chairge o' a hale department noo, and is muckle thocht on. But she has never mairried, and, though we hae askit her every year, she wad never come back to Drumquhat again!"
"And that," said my mother, smiling through her tears, "is the story how my Willie was led astray by the Lass in the Shop."
- ↑ "Rummelt tawties," i.e., a sort of purée of potatoes, made in the pot in which they have been boiled, with sweet milk, butter, and sometimes a little flavouring of cheese. All hands are expected to assist in the operation of "champing," that is, pounding and stirring them to a proper consistency of toothsomeness.